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by knight_bus_of_doom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Charlie Weasley, Dragons, F/M, Getting Together, Haven't you ever wanted to go on a trip with your ex-boyfriend's brother?, Post-War, Queerplatonic Relationships, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23953351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_bus_of_doom/pseuds/knight_bus_of_doom
Summary: Hermione doesn't really know what she's doing with her life now that the war is over and Voldemort is dead. Never mind that everyone around her seems to know what she should do better than she does. So when Charlie Weasley announces that he's going on a trip around the world, she gets an idea.Isn't it better to run toward something rather than away?
Relationships: Background Harry/Ginny - Relationship, Hermione Granger/Charlie Weasley, Past Charlie/OC, past Hermione/Ron
Comments: 21
Kudos: 84





	1. Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is a Queerplatonic Relationship fic! This is _not_ an "ace/aro person learns how to actually love" fic.
> 
> I meant to wait until this fic was complete to post it, but I lost motivation, so I'm hoping having it up here will make me write more of it!

It was a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, and Hermione was _desperate_ for something to do. The only problem was that nothing seemed to really… fit. It seemed like everywhere she looked, someone had a different idea of what she should be doing with her life, who she should be, and it terrified her, all these different versions of herself.

Ron had wanted her to be his wife, at least for a little bit. Those first few months after Voldemort was dead, engagements and weddings and pregnancies were all around them, and she’d convinced him to hold off. If it’s meant to be, it’ll still happen, she’d told him. Plus, Auror training and changing diapers wasn’t a good combination. 

They had worked for a bit, better than she’d thought they would, if she were being honest. He had started out on the Auror track, but quickly shifted gears, instead going into the brand-new Reparations department. He’d told her that he’d support anything she wanted to do, her highest lofty goals, and he’d have dinner on the table--he was the far better cook anyway--but anytime he had started listing all the things she could do, she’d just imagined being that high up and looked down in fear. She was just… skittish, honestly. The idea of staying in the same place, one hill over from the Burrow or in a tiny flat in London, fighting that same battle in a different place? It made her skin itch, and Ron couldn’t quite understand why, try as he might. They didn’t go to bed angry, per se, but just… apathetic, and Hermione hated it. They split up, fairly amicably, all things considered, six months into that first year of peace.

The Ministry had wanted her to be a poster-girl, and that had been exhausting. Look, it’s Hermione Granger, war hero. Muggleborn, top witch in her year, next Minister of Magic! Blood purity is in the past, witches and wizards, because here’s Hermione Granger. It made her dizzy. They’d offered her a job in the Reparations Department alongside Ron, first, and then a job as an Auror if she wanted it, although they clearly didn’t see her as much of a fighter. Still, what an inspiration! Hermione Granger, the most famous witch in Britain, who got tortured on the floor of Malfoy Manor, but we don’t talk about that. Hermione Granger, who cried herself to sleep for months in the Forest of Dean, but she’s gotten so many medals for that! Hermione Granger, who felt sick.

The last job they offered, as a trainee Unspeakable, was perhaps the most tempting. It was quiet in the Department of Mysteries, with lots of different puzzles to solve. But she’d gone in for an interview, seen the rooms where Dolohov had cursed her and Ron had been strangled by brains and Neville had broken his nose and Sirius had died and… she’d floated through the interview, nodding in the right places, and walked right back out again.

The public, the people, the media, wanted her to be excited. Cheerful, starting her new, happy life with her best friends. The Golden Trio, and if she and Ron weren’t dating anymore, ah well. Scandals and drama just made it all more exciting! They wanted her to… do something, become something, continue being famous. Hell, they reported it when she went out with friends, which didn’t happen very often for exactly that reason. She found herself staying inside more and more, which just seemed to frustrate everyone, including herself. Yes, she’d been in the spotlight as Harry’s best friend growing up, but not even the bizarre articles surrounding their Fourth Year had been this bad. Worse than the constant attention was the _expectation_. They weren’t just wondering what she’d do next, they were certain it would happen soon, now.

Her parents...well, they didn’t want much of anything, because she hadn’t been able to reverse the memory charm. She’d told her friends that she’d tried her hardest, had a good cry about it, but there was a part of her that thought maybe she hadn’t tried quite hard enough. Because if her parents got their memories back, they’d want to know what had happened, and Hermione didn’t quite know how to tell that story. Because if her parents got their memories back, it would be like everything was back to normal, and it wasn’t. Because what was normal, really? She’d lived in fear and feverish planning for as long as she could remember, at this point.

Harry was the best, and in another way, the worst, because he just wanted her to be herself. He’d gone back to Hogwarts to finish his studies like she had, but Hermione had been too haunted by the hallways and the memories and the gaps at the House tables to take her time. She’d taken her NEWTS in December after they’d gone back, traveling to the testing headquarters in London to do it, and passed them all. Harry had been disappointed, she could tell, but also so understanding. Harry was always understanding, and of course he was, because wasn’t he going through the same thing? Hadn’t he always been going through the same thing, adrift in loss, trying to figure out what to do next?

He was finishing up his last year now, sitting for exams in a week or two, and Hermione knew he was planning on going for a Mastery. In what, he hadn’t exactly decided, but she knew from one of many long conversations they’d had that he felt… cheated, swindled out of his school years. It was fifth year, he’d said, when he stopped studying for spring exams because he’d either be in the Hospital Wing or they’d be cancelled. No point revising for something that he wouldn’t get to do. So now, with the weight of a prophecy off him, he was inhaling books and knowledge at a sedate pace just because he could. He and Ginny had decided to take a break around when she and Ron had, both agreeing that they wanted to focus on their own lives for a bit, and that somehow made both of the breakups easier.

She was happy for him, but she could tell that he expected her to have a similar epiphany, or maybe no epiphany at all. He felt free, finally, and he could do what he’d always wanted. She couldn’t count how many times he’d asked her what she wanted to do, and she had said she didn’t know, and he’d looked at her with something akin to pity in his eyes. He wanted her to be herself, but she didn’t really know who that was, what she wanted. How could she follow her destiny, the path that had been stolen from her by Voldemort, if she’d never really seen that path to begin with?

She was sitting in the Burrow for a Weasley family dinner one Friday night, absorbing the chaos as best she could. She and Harry had permanent invites, even though neither of them were involved with a Weasley anymore. Molly had pulled them both aside and made it clear in no uncertain terms that they were her children too, no matter what, and they had nodded in gratitude and no small amount of fear. Weasley family dinners nowadays _meant_ Weasley family dinners, too, and it wasn’t at all unlikely to have to magically enlarge and strengthen the dining room table. 

Bill and Fleur were talking to Molly, who was regaling them with all kinds of pregnancy, birthing, and baby tips, as Fleur had announced they were trying. Bill looked distinctly uncomfortable as his mother mentioned milk ducts, and Hermione shot a sympathetic grin in his direction. Percy was talking to his father, as he often did at these dinners, but was also making a clear effort to include his girlfriend in the conversation who seemed to be holding her own admirably well. Hermione didn’t know Penelope Clearwater that well, but anyone that could keep up with Arthur Weasley on Muggle technology deserved props. Charlie was talking to George, who had switched seats when they started talking with a gesture at his good ear. He’d said something that had made the whole side of the table laugh (other than Molly, who found all his ear jokes in poor taste) and Hermione had laughed along with them just for the joy of it. Ginny was on her left next to Angelina, who had abandoned George halfway through the meal, both of them making faces at Bill as he tried to change the topic from ultrasound spells to anything else. Harry was on her right, discussing the next stages of Reparations with Ron and how best to approach them with a historical context in mind. Hermione looked around her and felt content, happy to be surrounded by her friends, her _family_ , but also somehow...alone. How could she feel alone, surrounded by this many people? Merlin, there were twelve people here, all of them talking and laughing and loving, and she felt like she was about to cry or flee or just explode.

She tuned into the first conversation she noticed, just to try and distract herself from her tumultuous emotions. Charlie and George had switched topics, from the joke shop to his upcoming plans, and something George had said had captured her attention.

“No, not back to Romania,” Charlie told him. “Nobody else from the reserve came and fought like I did. Some came to Britain to hide out with their families, but… I don’t want to be the returning war hero, tell stories around the fire at night.”

Romania, that’s what George had said. Hermione had always found Charlie’s work with dragons fascinating, had even written him a few times to see how Norberta was doing.

“Are you going to a different dragon reserve?” she asked him, raising her voice slightly so he would hear her over Harry and Ron between them, who were loudly debating house elf rights for some reason. She wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. They’d all Conjure S.P.E.W. badges before she knew it.

Charlie turned toward her. “No, I’m planning on just… bouncing around, here and there. There’s some dragon reserves on the general path, though, so I can tell my old bosses I’m gathering information.”

Ron turned toward his brother. “Wait, you’re just traveling around? Thought you were doing some official world dragon tour or something.”

“World dragon tour?” Charlie laughed. “You sound far too much like those Ministry muckety-mucks who come to the reserves to ‘experience the majesty of the creatures’. You need a vacation, baby bro.”

“Oi, I am not a muckety-muck,” Ron complained, turning to get the other Ministry employees at the table on his table. “Percy, Dad, we’re kicking most of the muckety-mucks out, right?”

“Muckety-muck,” Harry said quietly on her right, exaggerating the syllables and sounding amusingly like a chicken, and Hermione stifled laughter.

“There’s nothing wrong with being professional,” Percy told him, and the whole table laughed at that, and suddenly individual conversations became one big one. Hermione had always marveled at that, their ability to all come together in a moment.

“Yeah, Ronnie, there’s nothing wrong with being professional,” Charlie teased, and Ron shot him a look.

“Yeah, well you’re going to be the opposite of professional, camping around in the woods for weeks, or maybe months.”

Hermione felt something small clench inside her, and Harry seemed to feel it too, or maybe he reacted independently from her. He leaned into her a bit, and she leaned back. ‘Are you alright’ and ‘I’m fine’ communicated silently. Ron, for his part, shot them both a look of slight contrition before turning back to Charlie to continue the banter.

“You’re doing what?” Molly asked from the other end of the table, and now everyone was eerily silent at her tone of voice.

“Thanks, Ron,” Charlie mumbled.

“Sorry,” Ron said, sounding genuinely contrite. He probably was--he knew better than anyone that his mother’s ire was not something to tempt.

“Beginner’s mistake, Char, not telling her beforehand,” George said, shooting his brother a look of amusement and clearly looking forward to what was about to occur.

“Mum, I’m going traveling,” Charlie said, in a tone that was probably meant to brook no argument, but this was Molly Weasley they were talking about.

“Traveling? Where? Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, we’ll have to find places for you to stay, and we’ll have to make sure you have enough money… You’ll need checkpoints along the way, of course, family friends who can make sure you and your friends are alright. You _are_ going with friends,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

“No, I’m not, I’m going alone. I have maps and I’ve marked places to stay, hostels and such, and if there aren’t any I have a tent I can kip in. I have enough money, I’ve been saving. I’ve planned everything already, Mum.” He sounded very determined, and Hermione respected that he’d found a pretty good way to thwart his mother’s help by not needing any help at all.

“You need to go with someone else, though, Charlie, you can’t go by _yourself_.” she insisted.

“Molly,” Arthur warned, perhaps seeing her gain some steam.

“Mum, the point is to go alone,” Charlie countered. “I want to go alone, to have this trip to… find myself, sort of. I can’t find myself with other people around.”

Hermione looked at him, thinking about that. She was doing that, wasn’t she? Trying to find herself with other people around. Everyone thought they had already found her, but she was still doing the finding.

“But what if…” Molly trailed off, obviously trying not to upset the table, but a slight fog settled over them. The feeling of the war, of never knowing if your loved ones were safe. Hermione knew that was why they each always made it to Weasley family dinner, just to reassure themselves.

Charlie, noticing the mood, seemed to cave rather quickly to his mother’s worried looks. “I’ll firecall at least every three days, more if I can, and I’ll send postcards. You can even contact those family friends if you want to.”

“...Alright,” Molly said finally, and the table seemed to relax. Hermione thought she would never have caved so easily with one of her other children, especially the youngest, but Charlie was 25, and the second oldest, and a dragon tamer, and looked like he probably had notated maps of his trip in the pockets of his robes. This trip would be the safest ‘world dragon tour’ in history.

Something occurred to Hermione, and she dismissed it almost immediately, but it kept popping back up into her mind, pushing everything else out. She’d shove it down and it’d bounce back like a balloon. Suddenly every part of her wanted to get out, get away, but it was different like before. She wanted to get out in a _direction_. She didn’t want to run away, she wanted to run toward something. Maybe she’d take a long time about it, so by the time she got there she’d know where she was going. She could be in the middle of nowhere, where nobody had seen her picture in the paper or heard her name on the radio. She could walk into a shop and buy chips, completely normally. She could make friends and see what they liked about her that wasn’t her propensity for finding bits of a Dark Lord’s soul.

But she couldn’t just leave, she reminded herself. If she just traveled through the Wizarding World, that might not be any better than here, but traveling around the Muggle world as a nineteen year old girl, alone and defenseless without magic, that didn’t even approximate safety. Plus, she didn’t speak any other languages, if you didn’t count a bit of Bulgarian she’d picked up from Viktor and a vast amount of Latin that didn’t do her any good outside of an Arithmancy classroom. She couldn’t just pack up her belongings, it was nonsense. Her friends would think she was being self-destructive, they wouldn’t know that she was trying to save herself. And she couldn’t ask them to go with her, nor did she want to. She loved Harry and Ron, but they belonged here. And she couldn’t find herself, her new self, whoever she was supposed to be, with them around.

They were all sitting in the living room now, and Hermione was glad she was usually one of the least talkative people at these dinners, because she had definitely been lost in thought for a while now. She found herself looking at Charlie as she thought. He didn’t know her, not like many of the other Weasleys had. They’d missed school together by a year, she knew, and she laughed to herself as she realized that he’d been younger than she was now when he’d gotten a frantic letter from Ron saying that Hagrid was raising a dragon and could he help. Suddenly, the midnight rescue of Norberta seemed a lot less professional and a lot more like prankster antics.

She’d written him a couple of letters, worried about Norberta and also desperately curious, making sure to keep her wording extremely formal. She’d shown the first one to Ron for his advice, feeling a bit nervous about writing a wizard she’d never met, and he’d laughed aloud at the tone of her writing. ‘He’s my brother, Hermione, not the Minister of Magic,’ she remembered him saying. She’d finally sent it off with minor alterations and gotten an equally formal response, thanking her for her concern and detailing Norberta’s growth and recovery. He’d asked after Ron, and she’d responded with her thanks and a short story of his youngest brother’s latest shenanigans, and that had been that. The next time they had interacted had been… had it really been Bill’s wedding? Perhaps some Christmas before that, or on Platform 9 ¾. She honestly couldn’t remember. She wondered if he’d show her the route he had planned.

The group was breaking up, everyone waving goodbye and exchanging pleasantries. Percy shook his father’s hand and Penelope rolled her eyes at him with a fond smile, and Hermione decided in that moment that she definitely approved. She saw Charlie bidding his family farewell, going to walk out the door, and decided she would ask to see the map or his plans or something. She walked after him, a little quickly so he wouldn’t Apparate away.

Outside, he was almost at the gate, so she called after him. “Charlie!”

He turned, surprised. “Hermione? Did I forget something?”

“No, I…” This seemed like an odd request to make across the garden, so Hermione walked toward him, stopping in front of him a bit nervously. “It’s about your trip.”

He smiled. “Did Mum send you? I really will be fine, you know. I’ve taken precautions, spelled a few things so Muggles won’t find me if I don’t want them to, and all the dragon reserves are expecting me around certain days.”

“How many are you going to? Which ones?” Hermione asked, her curiosity waylaying her original questions.

He smiled wider at that, and this was definitely a topic he was comfortable with. “Oh, loads. Five at least, and more if I get replies from them before I get there. I’m stopping by my old stomping grounds in Romania, of course, but there’s one in China that just got a new Hungarian Horntail, and a place in Australia that my friend Jack works at. Oh, and there’s this one in Egypt, near where we went on vacation that one time, that has a breed of dragon that isn’t found anywhere else in the world. They breath fire, but it’s this dry heat, it bakes the sand, makes the moisture evaporate so their wings stay moisturized. It’s fascinating, and the reserve is just supposed to be gorgeous.” Charlie had a dazed look in his eyes, imagining it, and Hermione thought she might have one, too.

Maybe that was why, when she opened her mouth to ask him if she could see his itinerary, she instead asked him, “Can I come?”


	2. Making Plans

“What?” Charlie asked, looking astounded.

Hermione couldn’t blame him in the slightest. She had shocked herself, which she didn’t do very often. But she couldn’t take it back, and now that she had said it… “I just… I want to get away, I want to get out of here. But I can’t go by myself, and all those places sound amazing. I wouldn’t be annoying, or anything, and I can get all my own stuff and my own places to stay, and I have my own money. I just…” she sighed, trying to explain. “I need to get out, but toward something.”

Charlie was nodding, but looking at her strangely, and she realized that she probably had just said more words than all her conversations with him put together. 

She fought the blush rising to her cheeks, happy that her dark complexion and the dim light of sundown probably hid it. “Forget it,” she backtracked, taking a step back toward the house. “You wanted to be alone, you said that was the whole point, and you don’t even really know me.”

Charlie laughed. “Actually, the fact that I don’t really know you kind of negates the not wanting to be alone part.”

She nodded, understanding completely. Hadn’t she just said that she couldn’t go with Ron and Harry, because they knew her? Because they had this idea of who she was. But Charlie didn’t, not really.

He was still looking at her strangely, but seemed to be considering, crazily enough. “Why do you need to get out?” he asked, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Is someone threatening you, or something? A reporter, or--”

“No, no,” Hermione hurried to say, cutting him off. “I’m fine, everything’s fine.” She thought back to what he had said earlier, that phrase that had first caught her attention. “I need to find myself, and I can’t find myself with people around. There’s always people around. Or there’s no one around, but that’s because I’m in my flat, alone, and it’s driving me mad!” She sounded a little hysterical at the end and stopped, trying to calm down. She was supposed to be trying to convince him that she wouldn’t be a bother, and here she was, doing a passable imitation of a crazy woman.

Charlie opened his mouth, then closed it again, just looking at her. Finally he huffed and walked to a nearby bench, pulling something out of his pocket and spreading it out beside him. When he looked up and saw she hadn’t moved, he beckoned her over.

As she got closer, she realized it was a map, and stifled a laugh as she realized she’d been right earlier--he really _did_ have a notated map in his robes pocket. She sat down on the other side of it and studied it, appreciating the legend in the corner. Color-coded. Excellent.

“The blue route is the most direct one, straight from one dragon reserve to the next with places to rest in between, and just blue will take about two months at the most,” Charlie said, levitating some stones over to hold down the corners. “Red bits are detours to cool places I’m thinking about checking out, like day trips that can be decided once we get to them.”

“We?” Hermione said, surprised. Sure, she had asked, but…

“Your reason for wanting to go is pretty damn close to my reason,” Charlie admitted. “I can’t say mine is good enough to take off for weeks and yours isn’t. Plus, you might just decide to go on your own,” he said, a quirk to his smile so Hermione would know he was joking with her, “and then my mother would kill me if Ronald didn’t first. But before I say okay, I want to lay this out…”

It was a good while later that Harry found them outside, poring over the map, Hermione tracing a yellow line. “Those are emergency lines,” Charlie was saying. “Any part of the trip that’s a bit far from civilization, the yellow path is to the closest place with a connection to the Floo network.”

“This is pretty cool,” Harry said, sitting on the ground in front of them, tracing a different yellow line himself.

Charlie looked at Hermione, and Hermione wondered if he thought she would lie to her best friend. She wouldn’t. They were all too sensitive to lies, the Golden Trio, and had promised ages ago not to do it. Even if they couldn’t trust the media or the Ministry or anyone, they could trust each other. “I want to go with him,” she told Harry quickly, trying to imbue her voice with that same determination that Charlie had used earlier.

Harry stopped tracing and looked up at her. He looked like he was going to say something, but then he cocked his head, a classic sign of him trying to observe as closely as possible. He took in her facial expression, the way she was looking at him, her posture. “Huh,” he said. “Alright.”

Hermione laughed. “You were definitely the easiest person to tell,” she told her best friend.

He shrugged. “Better than you just taking off one night to find a grand adventure. You do better with plans, and you’ll definitely be safer if you’re together.” He turned to Charlie. “Do you reckon this will make your mum happier, or just more confused?”

Charlie grinned at him. “Probably just confuse her.”

Telling Ron was only a little more time-consuming, mostly because he wanted to come, too. Hermione panicked a little, because if Ron was there the whole point was moot, but she couldn’t tell Charlie not to invite his brother. Luckily, Charlie shot him down too, far more effectively than she would have thought to. “I’m not bringing a radio or a chess set,” he said, “and you would be bored out of your mind. Don’t you have a job, anyway, you dolt?”

Ron sighed. “Yes, okay. But Charlie, dragons!”

Harry, standing beside them, groaned. “What, seeing me almost die by dragon and then breaking a dragon out of Gringotts and riding on its back wasn’t enough dragon for you? The mind boggles, Ron, it truly does.”

Ron shot him a look that could have been exasperation or slight apology for the ‘almost dying’ part. Then he turned back to Hermione and Charlie. “Mum’s going to think you’re dating, you know. She’s desperate for Hermione and Harry to marry into the family somehow, even if she doesn’t say it, and you’re the only one who’s single other than me.”

“That mean you’re going to marry Harry?” Charlie said scathingly, laughing when Ron sputtered in response. “Plus, I’m single very much on purpose, and Mum knows it. I didn’t walk around for an entire summer with the definitions of ‘asexual’ and ‘aromantic’ stamped on my forehead for nothing.”

“Didn’t you lecture me about how you still could have relationships, just not the same kind?” Ron asked his brother. “There were terms and everything, and it lasted three hours, and I thought there was going to be an exam,” he told Harry, a hand to his chest in mock pain.

“Yes, but we’re not confusing Mum with that bit, because I just got her to stop setting me up with people,” Charlie reminded him in a tone that was a little frightening.

Ron held up his hands in self-defense.

In the end, no one put up too much of a protest, although everyone had a different reaction. A couple other people asked to come with and were told no just as Ron had been, and Hermione couldn’t help but be a little grateful. Not only that Charlie had made sure it wasn’t a group outing, but also because he’d said yes to her in the first place. She resolved to be as little of a burden as possible.

Nobody teased them about running off together, either, and Hermione wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Charlie was known to be single and happy about it, or their six year age difference, or just that it was Hermione Granger and a Weasley and therefore rather old news. She’d told a reporter what she was doing the first time they caught her coming home with a new magical tent, not wanting wild rumors to fly while she was gone, but the one thing neither her nor Charlie did was tell anyone but the Weasley clan where exactly they would be. Hermione could just imagine a swarm of tiny Rita Skeeters, chasing them around the globe. No thank you.

They left the morning after a Weasley family dinner, and the dinner itself was a magnificent send-off that may have been designed to make them regret going. Molly had made all their favorites, including some dishes that Hermione was sure Ron had blabbed about, because she’d never seen them on this table before. She ate until she was so full she thought Harry might have to roll her out the door, and then she slept in Ginny’s room as usual. Angelina slept on a Conjured mattress in between them, as she and George were getting up bright and early to see them off and hadn’t felt like leaving, but weren’t allowed to sleep in the same room. Angelina, eyes twinkling, had told Hermione and Ginny in a whisper that the rule certainly hadn’t stopped them before. Hermione had grinned wickedly, and Ginny had covered her ears, complaining about knowing far too much about her brothers already.

They left around sunrise the next morning, planning to Apparate out far enough where they could walk in peace, a bunch of stumbling Weasleys trying to give them well-wishes while yawning. As they walked to the gate and then both prepared to Apparate away, loaded down by supplies for their weeks-long trip around the world, Hermione glanced at Charlie and wondered what she had gotten herself into.


	3. Settling

They Apparated out a ways, Charlie taking the lead so they wouldn’t get separated. Hermione hated Apparation, honestly, and she was glad that this wasn’t that kind of trip for the most part. Charlie had been planning to use it to cross the English Channel, and to get through Muggle areas, but she had pointed out that she could just book them passage on a ferry or a bus, that she could navigate the Muggle world easily, and Charlie had gotten a whole new excited look in his eyes. “I can show you the dragon reserves, and you can show me Muggle areas,” he’d said, and she’d easily agreed. She’d explain how turnstiles worked five hundred times in exchange for him saying yes, for letting her come with him. They’d still Apparate when they needed to, of course, and for the longer distances where it was necessary.

Now though, walking alongside him through the countryside, Hermione poked at the silence around them and wondered if it was awkward. Was he regretting his choice? Was _she_? She’d promised not to bother him, but maybe he was waiting for her to speak. She glanced over at him and saw that he had his face turned up to the sky, eyes closed as he walked, taking in the sunlight. He looked peaceful, and so she took his lead, letting her worries fade into the background and the world around her drop in instead. Birds were flying above them, calling to each other. Sunshine was pouring down on them. It was the perfect day, and she laughed.

“What?” he asked, smiling at her amiably.

“It’s just so gorgeous,” she remarked, gesturing around them. “It’s like someone designed it or painted it, or how people are supposed to imagine the countryside. I haven’t been out here in ages.”

“Me either,” he admitted, looking around them. “Whenever I’m in this part of the country, I’m at home, because I know Mum would go crazy if I was just a hill or two over. I haven’t been out here in years. I remember playing with Cedric Diggory around here,” he commented.

Her stomach twinged a little at the reminder of one of the first casualties of the war, or at least of their war. Harry had told her just once how he had died, what had happened in the graveyard, silent tears running down his cheeks.

“He was younger than me by a couple of years, of course. Percy knew him better,” Charlie continued. “I think that was part of what made him believe the Minister, back then. Because the boy who had died, who Harry was saying Voldemort had killed, was this kid that he grew up playing with, that lived a hill over. He didn’t want it to be real.”

“I never thought about that,” Hermione admitted, kicking herself for not realizing it. “That you live that close to them, and Percy was just a year older…”

“Yeah,” Charlie laughed a little. “I remember being glad that he was Percy’s age. Bill and I had each other, you know? We were only a year apart. And we were already so close when Percy was born, he was automatically kind of...left out. We didn’t mean to,” he added. “Well, sometimes we meant to. Children are cruel like that. And then the twins were born, and they had an automatic playmate built in, so Percy was kind of stuck in the middle.”

“That’s almost worse than being an only child,” Hermione commented.

“I honestly can’t imagine being an only child,” Charlie laughed. “It’s inconceivable to me.”

“Imagine hanging out with your parents all the time. Lots of reading and drawing.”

“But no one steals your toys and stuffs them down the loo, then tells you they were drowned for their crimes,” Charlie commented.

“The twins?”

“Percy, actually,” Charlie commented, laughing at the surprised face she made. “You can’t tell when he’s around all of us, but Percy’s hilarious. He won’t talk all night, and then he’ll say one thing, and it’ll just… bowl you over. He was a troublemaker growing up, too. Part of the outsider thing, I guess.”

“Being outside sucks,” Hermione agreed.

Charlie burst out laughing, actually stopping for a moment to put his hands on his knees. When he straightened up, he gestured around them, and Hermione started laughing too. “Smart of you to agree to a trip like this if the outside sucks,” he joked as they started walking again, both of them still chuckling.

Their conversation petered out, but the amiability didn’t, and even when they walked in silence Hermione felt more secure.

When they set the tents up that night Hermione felt the uncertainty again. Would they start in one, or outside, talking or reading or coexisting? Or should she just go in her own tent and disappear, and leave him be? She didn’t want to stay out with the mosquitos, particularly, but she couldn’t just walk into his tent, and she didn’t want to invite him into hers. It was that knowing-but-not-knowing thing again. If she had known him better, this wouldn’t be the trip she’d agreed to, but as it was, she wasn’t sure what their boundaries were. Were they friends? Distant family? Acquaintances?

In the end, Charlie seemed to answer the question for her by peeking his head out of his newly constructed tent. “Want to come in and go over tomorrow’s plan?”

“Sure,” she said, walking into the entrance and then almost backing out again immediately.

“Hermione?” Charlie asked, seeing the look on her face.

Feeling herself go a little dizzy, she sat down on a nearby chair and took deep breaths. Of course it was the same tent, that made sense. It had been the Weasley family tent long before they used it on the Horcrux hunt. She had given it back to Arthur herself.

Charlie had apparently figured it out, because he had Conjured some water and held it out to her. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, but he kept his voice even and calm. She appreciated it. “I forgot, and that’s not okay. We can buy a new one in the next town, or--”

Hermione laughed at that, that he had gone straight to buying a whole new tent just to make her more comfortable. “No,” she managed, looking up at him, and he looked a little wary. Probably of the fact that she might be laughing and crying at the same time. “No,” she said again, “It’s perfectly all right. It just caught me off guard, give me a second.” 

She took a look around, employing a trick she’d learned around Hogwarts when she started to feel acutely haunted by memories. Looking at a bookcase, she assigned a memory to it, of Ron reading poetry out loud. Badly. She looked at the rug in the middle of the room and thought about her and Harry waltzing, laughing, having fun. She watched the lamp in the corner flicker and thought about the shadow puppets they’d made some nights, Ron always offering up a vulgar gesture that made her jinx him. She took another deep breath and looked back at Charlie, who was watching her. “I’m okay now,” she said.

“What did you just do? If you don’t mind.”

“Each part of the room got a happy memory assigned to it,” she said, pointing around and describing them each in turn. “Instead of the bad memories, I put the good ones in here, and it helps. I spent a lot of time in here with my two best friends.”

Charlie smiled, cocking his head at her, a gesture that reminded her strongly of Ron. She supposed Ron might have gotten it from his older brother, actually. “That’s clever.”

“I read it in a Muggle psychology book,” Hermione admitted, “so I can’t take credit for it. Works wonders, though, as long as it’s a place you have good memories of too.” Her brain jumped, unbidden, to Malfoy Manor. No, it wouldn’t work there.

“Still,” Charlie said, shrugging, then moved over to the other chair and drew her attention to the map on the table between them. “Alright, so tomorrow we walk the rest of the way to the coast and take the ferry, which you’ll handle because I’m still not quite sure how Muggle money works.”

“Honestly, it’s the same as Magical money,” Hermione complained.

“There’s paper _and_ coins.”

“At least there’s not 29 pence to a pound, or a ridiculous number like that,” Hermione countered.

“Fair enough. So we take the ferry across, and then from there we’re on our way to the French Dragon Reserve, but we won’t get there until two days after. Then we have a choice.”

“Paris,” Hermione said, tracing the little red line.

“Exactly.”

They had added a few red destinations for Hermione, all things that Charlie would enjoy too. Paris, the Magical Congress in New York City. She’d even put down a little red dot in Bulgaria where Viktor lived, still on the national Quidditch team, and sent him a letter to see if he wanted to get dinner. She hadn’t seen him in years, and suspected that Charlie would appreciate meeting one of the most famous seekers in the world. ‘I’d forgotten you knew him,’ he’d said when she’d mentioned it, with the excitement of a little kid. ‘Have you seen him do a Wronksi Feint? Close up?’

They finished their plans for the next day, ate some leftovers Molly had packed them, closed everything up, and Hermione found herself yawning. They’d walked for a while today, and she really wanted to put some Blister Balm on her feet before she went to bed. It would only get worse, after all.

Charlie laughed at her yawn even as he caught it and yawned himself. “Okay, okay,” he said as he blinked it away. “That’s a sign if ever I’ve seen one. Bright and early tomorrow?”

Hermione nodded, standing up and taking a look around the familiar tent before walking out and going over to her own. They’d set up protection spells earlier, and even though the movements were eerily familiar, there’d been something comforting about the routine. Securing everything, setting up a home base.

Charlie stuck his head out just as she was about to walk in her own tent. “I don’t have a silencing charm set up between us, so you can call out if you need me. That okay?”

Hermione nodded, reassured by the notion. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!” he responded cheerfully.

Hermione laid in bed thinking about the doubts she had felt this morning. Some of them were still there, lingering, but whenever she thought they were about to wear down on her, instead everything went… fine. It was just so easy. Even that moment of panic in the tent. Charlie had asked her about it, nodded at her explanation, and then just let it pass. They’d talked about Cedric Diggory this morning, but as a playmate of Percy’s and a person they missed, not a tragic death at the start of the war, and it hadn’t felt like they were avoiding anything at all. They’d spoken about anything and nothing, and it was like Hermione was finally experiencing what Harry had been for a year: peace.

This might really be a good trip.


	4. Here Be Dragons

The ferry had gone quite well, in Hermione’s opinion. Sure, Charlie had hung over the side and stared at the engine for long enough that she’d had to drag him back in to avoid stares, but nobody knew them here, and somehow it was refreshing to have people stare at her for a _normal_ reason. She’d paid the fare easily, done all the talking, and Charlie had seemed far more impressed than he should be. Really, how hard was it to say, ‘Two tickets please,’ and give them the right amount of money?

Luckily, they blended in. They’d discussed packing lists in depth, something Harry, Ron, and George had teased them about as the primary helpers for their supply runs. But it would pay off, they knew. They’d both packed some wizarding robes, but mostly Muggle clothes. Nothing too loose or baggy, Charlie had told her, for when we’re around the dragons. She’d shuddered and put away her flowy tops. They even both had new hiking boots, and they looked for all the world like two young people backpacking across Europe. No need for those around them to know that without Featherlight charms their backpacks would not have been manageable in the least.

After the ferry they’d gotten breakfast in a small town on the coast, then caught a bus going the general direction they were headed. This part wasn’t as planned, but the fact that they could Apparate if needed made Hermione much less anxious about it. Sure, they wouldn’t always be able to find a bus, but when you could spin on the spot and reappear hundreds of miles away did it really matter? They wouldn’t be able to Apparate forward, of course, where they hadn’t been yet, but they could always Apparate back and find a Floo.

The bus was a novel experience for Charlie too, and Hermione found herself laughing at him more than enjoying the view. He was far more excited than anyone else, and she could clearly see Arthur Weasley in his son.

They’d stayed in a little bed and breakfast in a small wizarding town last night, in adjoining rooms so they could hear each other in an emergency. There had been dinner served downstairs, and it had been quite good, although both she and Charlie had lamented that nothing could quite match Molly Weasley’s cooking.

Hermione woke with a start, panicking for a moment before realizing where she was. She quickly got ready, but was still putting the last touches on her hair when there was a knock on the door.

“Hermione?”

“Come in,” she called, twisting the last bit so it all looked marginally put together. Less of a fire hazard, anyway, since they were seeing dragons today. Blimey, they were seeing dragons today! She beamed up at Charlie as he walked in. “Dragons!”

“Dragons,” he agreed with a laugh. “You all good to go?”

She put the last tie in place and patted it. “Yep! Just let me put this stuff away.” She stuck her hair cream and little baggie of ties and clips back in her bag, then hoisted it onto her back. “Lead the way.” They were coming back to these rooms tonight since the reserve was so close, but she didn’t want to leave anything behind

“There’s actually a Floo we can take, or we can walk up to it.”

“Let’s walk, if that’s alright,” Hermione said. She rather enjoyed when they were just walking together, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. It was like everything in her head got quieter while the little things around them got louder.

“Absolutely,” Charlie grinned, and led the way out of the building, to the edge of town, and to a small path leading up a nearby mountain.

“Charlie,” Hermione said accusingly, already hearing her thighs complain, “you said _walk_ , not _climb_.”

“Did I?” he said innocently, then laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s not actually as far up as it looks. The security measures start halfway up, Muggle repelling charms and the like.”

“I thought this was a wizarding town?”

“It is, and if a Muggle tries to buy property here or permanently rent a room, they’re...dissuaded. But they get travelers and tourists, so the reserve has extra protection.”

Hermione nodded her understanding, the incline they were walking up making her reluctant to talk at the same time.

About an hour later they were maybe halfway up, but it was like fog cleared in front of Hermione’s eyes and suddenly she was looking down into a bowl, half-mountains on all sides, buildings below them. But beyond the buildings, far enough away that they looked almost like birds…

“Dragons,” she whispered, grabbing Charlie’s arm in excitement and a little bit of fear. “Oh my god, Charlie, it’s amazing!”

He laughed. “I know something’s remarkable when you curse like a Muggle, Hermione.”

She felt her cheeks heat up. It wasn’t easy to break some linguistic habits, as she’d learned quickly, and sometimes they still slipped out. “You did your fair share of ‘Merlin’ this and ‘Merlin’ that on the ferry and the bus yesterday,” she pointed out.

“Oh, I definitely did,” Charlie agreed, and started making his way down the hill. “You coming?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, walking carefully down the hill. It was more difficult than it seemed, because she kept watching the faraway dragons instead of her feet.

By the time she got to the bottom, Charlie was Conjuring a stream of water into his mouth a few meters away and talking to who must have been employees of the dragon reserve. She walked up to join them, setting her pack down and rolling her shoulders. 

“Bonjour, je m'appelle Charlie Weasley,” he said in slightly accented French, and she tried not to giggle at how hard he seemed to be focusing. “Je vous avez envoyé une lettre?” He had told her earlier that most of them spoke English, but he tried to greet them in French, anyway. ‘It’s only polite,’ he had said.

“Oui, Monsieur Weasley,” one of them said, and Charlie’s shoulders relaxed. “We were expecting you. I believe you are staying in town?”

“Yes,” Hermione agreed, and they turned to her. The other person held out his hand and she took it. “Hermione. Bonjour,” she added belatedly. She had left off her last name, which felt impolite, but she wasn’t sure they were far enough away from Britain yet for her to not be famous anymore.

“Bonjour,” he replied. “Because of that, we don’t have rooms for you, but there is a secure room in our main building for your belongings.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said, and then they were being led across to the largest of the buildings.

Hermione tried to pay attention during the tour, she really did, but she was finding it hard to focus on new kinds of gloves and mess halls when she knew there were dragons around here somewhere. Charlie noticed after awhile and leaned toward her. “After lunch, dragons. I promise.”

She shot him a smile. “I have a feeling I’m a little more excited than anyone else here is.”

“Eh, but we love enthusiasm!” said one of their guides, a rather talkative man named Luis. “We remember when we were as enthusiastic about just seeing a dragon, huh, Charlie?”

“Absolutely,” Charlie said, grinning. “I remember almost getting my face burned off, I was so taken with a Chinese Fireball.”

“You don’t really work with dragons until you’ve been burned for a stupid reason,” Claire said. “I had lost my dragonhide gloves and pulled on random ones, because it was wintertime and I was cold. Didn’t occur to me that they might be extra flammable.” She shook her head, lamenting her stupidity of years past.

“Ouch,” Hermione commented. “I suppose I have a couple of friends who are dragon tamers, then.”

“Oh?”

“Four… no, five,” she said slowly, counting in her head.

“Five?” Luis said incredulously. “But you do not work with dragons yourself, yes?”

“No, I don’t,” Hermione agreed. “I’ve just interacted with them rather a lot for my age, I suppose!”

Charlie beside her seemed to be counting, and finally he gave up. “Who’s the fifth? Me, Harry, Fleur, Krum.”

“Ron,” she told him. “After Gringotts. It was more like a scalding than anything else, but we’re pretty sure it was from the dragon.”

“Blimey, I didn’t know he’d gotten burned,” Charlie said, and she hoped that he was concerned as well as proud of his little brother.

They had lunch, a delicious meal that she truly enjoyed, and then made their way out to the enclosures. “Reserves are just for research or rehabilitation, of course,” Claire was saying, “So all of the dragons here are injured or ill, and either will be released back into dragon territory by us or need to stay here for the rest of their lives.”

Hermione walked up to the first enclosure, careful to stay behind a large yellow line in the dirt that she figured was there for a reason. Luis blew some kind of whistle, although it made a much lower sound than she expected, and then she saw a large, white dragon flying at them.

“Why do you need the noise?” Charlie asked. “Is it a new technique you’re using?”

“No, this particular Ironbelly is blind, so it uses smell and hearing to navigate. Too many smells out here already.”

Hermione grabbed at Charlie’s arm. “Charlie, it’s _him_.”

“Huh?” he said, tearing his eyes away from the dragon to look at her in confusion. “Wait, you mean…” he trailed off, looking back at the dragon with wide eyes, then turned to Luis and Claire. “Where did you find him?”

“He was reported as wandering,” Claire said as Luis approached the dragon, carefully tracing shapes in the air with his wand. “Why?”

Charlie turned back to Hermione and she nodded. Far be it from her to say they couldn’t tell these people the truth. It was on Gringotts, what this dragon had been through. He nodded in reply and turned back to Claire. “This is the dragon that was broken out of Gringotts Bank in London a little over a year ago.”

Claire did a brilliant double take, and then narrowed her eyes. “We heard stories about that, but there was never any proof. How do you know?”

Again, Charlie hesitated, but Hermione answered for him. “Because I was one of the people who broke him out. Hermione Granger.”

Claire opened and shut her mouth a couple of times, then came forward and took Hermione’s hand in her own, shaking it. “Thank you,” she said fervently. “When he came to us...he was so scared, so frightened of anything. Obviously he had been hurt, abused, but we didn’t know… Thank you for setting him free.”

Hermione nodded, uncomfortable, wishing she could take it back. She’d just wanted them to know where this dragon had come from so they could help him. “I can tell you where he was and things like that, if that would help.”

“Oui, of course, that would be very helpful indeed,” Claire agreed. “But we should return to the main building to do that, so I can write everything down.” Then she turned back to the enclosure. “Luis?”

Hermione smiled and nodded through another round of thanks, fighting the urge to either scream or run away. She was usually better at this, but it had been days without anyone hero-worshipping her, and apparently her tolerance had disappeared. Charlie stood next to her and after a bit seemed to notice her discomfort, because he convinced the others to keep walking and tell him a little about what they were doing there. He took copious notes, asked a lot of questions, and Hermione tried to feel like all her problems hadn’t just followed her across borders.

Later that night, after she had described that room in Gringotts to a bunch of people and they had seen three or four other dragons and Charlie had taken pages of notes and several folders of documents, they were back in Hermione’s room at the bed and breakfast. Charlie had spread out the map again and they were supposed to be talking about the next day, but Hermione was still feeling off kilter.

“Are you okay?” Charlie asked her, gently enough that she almost laughed at his caution.

“Yes,” she said, smiling at him.

“You don’t seem like it,” he pushed, ever-so-slightly, and Hermione wasn’t sure how she felt about it. But it was Charlie, and he probably already knew a lot of this anyway.

“It was just the way they treated me today, when I told them who I was,” she said. “They turned from these trained professionals into...they were all thanking me, like I did some huge thing. We didn’t save the dragon to save him, Charlie, we did it to get out.”

“But once you got out, you let him go,” Charlie pointed out.

“We couldn’t have kept him if we had tried,” Hermione pointed out, frustrated. “He hardly knew we were there. We had to topple off his back and into a lake just to get off.”

Charlie looked a little pale. “How high up was he flying?”

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t know. Fifty feet? Not that high.”

Charlie laughed bitterly. “Sounds high to me.”

Hermione shrugged. It all seemed like a faraway dream now, all that stuff. Sometimes it came back all at once, but only the things that she hadn’t really absorbed before. Like today, trying to remember everything at Gringotts to describe it, or when she had seen the tent again.

“Hermione,” Charlie started. “Are you, and Ron and Harry, the reason that dragon is free today?”

“Yes,” she said reluctantly, biting back her arguments about the root cause of all of their troubles being Voldemort and the dragon just being an escape route. The answer to his question was still yes.

“That’s all they were thanking you for,” Charlie said softly. “They know that dragon, they care about him, and they were thanking you for being the reason they’re able to do that.”

“But we didn’t do it on purpose,” Hermione insisted, trying to get him to understand. She really did think he was trying, which wasn’t exactly surprising but was a bit novel. Most people couldn’t quite get this, outside of Ron and Harry. “We were just trying to live, trying to get out of there. We didn’t do it to be heroic, or noble, or to be dragons rights activists.”

Charlie chuckled.

“We just did it to get out,” Hermione finished, sagging back in her chair.

“I know. And I know you all get a lot of praise for things you didn’t do, or for reasons you didn’t have, or things like that. I heard someone praise Ron as the hero that finally united the blood classes,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Hermione stifled a laugh. “Harry had someone tell him he saved the world, and when he told them that Voldemort technically saved it by killing him, they looked so confused.”

Charlie shook his head. “I still don’t really understand that. Don’t explain it,” he held up a hand to stop her, although she hadn’t started speaking. “I don’t think I want to understand, honestly.”

“You probably don’t,” Hermione said, remembering what Harry had told her about his experience in the all-white Kings Cross. She shuddered.

“But you get praise for things you did, too, you know,” he added. “It’s alright to...be alright. With that.”

Hermione sighed. “I’m trying. But the real praise is all mixed in with the fake praise. It’s exhausting.”

Charlie nodded. “So, Paris tomorrow. Do you want to go to the Eiffel Tower first or to the world’s largest magical library?”

Hermione turned wide eyes on him, and he laughed.

It turned out she didn’t like the library as much as she thought she would. True, it was a very large library, but the _Bibliothèque Magique de Paris_ seemed more like a tourist trap than anything else. There was a bookstore in front, for goodness sake, and a coffee bar right in the middle. No quiet alcoves to curl up in, no dusty books just itching to be opened. Still, she perused some truly fascinating original manuscripts, under magical glass, of course, and Charlie bought a rather artistic map of Paris to add to their map collection.

It turned out Charlie didn’t like the Eiffel Tower as much as he thought he would, and Hermione fought the urge to laugh as they stood at the top of it and he pressed himself against the inner wall.

“You’re a _dragon tamer_ ,” she said to him, trying to be concerned rather than amused.

“Yes, and as such I’ve always stayed firmly on the ground in order to _tame_ the _dragon_ ,” Charlie had informed her. They’d been brought up here by a rather short-distance Floo that took guests from a building across the way to the Wizarding viewing platform balanced on the top of the Tower, so they were even higher than Hermione had imagined, and she was exhilarated. She hated flying, detested it, and had gotten more than enough high-flying danger before and during the war against Voldemort, but being up high like this wasn’t the same thing as all. Charlie didn’t seem to agree, although he smiled shakily at her joy as they gazed over Paris. Hermione noted the parts of the city that seemed to shimmer slightly, marking them as predominantly Wizarding, and let herself trace where the two worlds twisted and curled around each other. London looked like this from above as well, she supposed.

She got her fill of the view and stepped back to where Charlie was, standing next him against the wall. This viewing platform reminded her a bit of the Burrow, actually, everything balanced unnaturally and yet seeming perfectly sturdy. He still looked a bit pale, so she pressed her shoulder into his a bit, wanting to stabilize him a bit. She’d done the same for Ron or Harry countless times when faced with reporters or the Wizengamot. Charlie smiled at her, pressing back in thanks. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“Whenever you are,” she replied, smiling maybe a bit too brightly.

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know, dragon tamer with a fear of heights. It’s ridiculous.”

She laughed as they stepped into the exit Floo. “I can’t hover steadily on a broom five feet off the ground without getting woozy, so I understand.”

They walked back onto the streets of Paris, talking slightly quieter since they were using Wizarding terms. “Really? Didn’t you have to fly on Thestrals in fifth year, and then on the dragon after Gringotts? And then there was all that on Harry’s 17th birthday, when George lost his ear, and--”

Hermione cut him off. “That time was on a Thestral too, actually, _and_ I was Polyjuiced into Harry, which made it even worse.”

“Wasn’t that mission voluntary?” Charlie asked. “I would have volunteered, but I wasn’t back in the country yet.”

“Yes, it was,” Hermione admitted. “I made them put me on a Thestral instead of a broom, because at least they don’t look like a cleaning product, you know?”

Charlie snorted.

“How do you even know about that time in fifth year?”

“Mum told me about it. I’ve heard about a lot of your shenanigans through letters, actually, at least the ones that involved Ron.”

Hermione laughed. “I really hope your mum doesn’t know about _all_ the shenanigans.”

“Oh?”

His tone was part gossip and part curiosity, and she thought for a moment about the best story to tell him. “Well, in first year, I set Professor Snape’s robes on fire during a Quidditch game.”

“You did _what_?” Charlie cried, drawing the attention of those around them, and then doubled over in laughter, straightening back up after a minute and wiping away his tears.

Hermione laughed a bit too, but was beginning to regret her choice. “I shouldn’t laugh about it, not after everything we learned about him.”

Charlie frowned slightly, thinking. “I think… we still have to be able to laugh at memories like that. Obviously he wasn’t hurt, and you probably had a good reason, right?”

Hermione nodded. “We thought he was cursing Harry. He was actually helping him, but…”

“The war has already tainted the future so much,” Charlie said thoughtfully. They were walking through back streets now, just letting their feet take them somewhere, as they often did. “I don’t think it should get to taint the past.”

“It does, though,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “Every story I could tell you, it’s different because of everything that happened. It gives things context, or regret, or… I mean, I could tell you about a hundred tiny things that have new meaning now.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” she cast about for a good example. “First year on the train, Scabbers bit Gregory Goyle, Draco Malfoy’s friend, on the train to Hogwarts. I remember Harry and Ron telling me about it, us laughing that Goyle had gotten what he deserved. And now I think about that, and it’s… It was Peter Pettigrew, the whole time. A Death Eater in disguise bit a Slytherin student who became a Death Eater himself a few years later.”

“Wow.” Charlie was shaking his head. “You’re right, that’s… a lot. Merlin, Percy wrote me a letter after the truth came out about Pettigrew. He was so freaked out.”

Hermione shook her head. “I’d honestly forgotten that he was with your family long before that.”

Charlie shuddered. “He used to run over my hands.”

Somehow, this new kind of rehashing the past wasn’t bothering Hermione as much as it usually did. Maybe because they were exchanging new information instead of telling the famous stories, maybe because they weren’t romanticizing anything. Maybe because she was walking through the streets of Paris. This was okay, this was alright.


	5. Rumors and Gossip

The next leg of their trip was one of the longer ones, between Paris and the Lithuanian Dragon Reserve, and though they sometimes Floo’d from one wizarding village to the next or took some form of Muggle transit, more than often they walked for days at a time. Hermione expected to get tired, or at least run out of topics to talk about. Sometimes they did, but when that happened and silence fell, she and Charlie just walked in companionable quiet instead until one of them had something else to say.

They talked about the war sometimes, sharing stories and opinions and emotions, and Hermione found herself learning a lot more about what the Order had done while she, Harry, and Ron had been fighting their own battles. Charlie was just enough older than her that he’d been included in meetings from almost the start, had gotten information while she was still trying to slip Extendable Ears under doors. He hadn’t really been around until the end, though, which gave him a somewhat unique position. Hermione hadn’t been struck by all the horrors, not really. It was hard to be shocked by anything when you’d been hearing about Voldemort on the back of people’s head at the age of 11. She’d become almost numb to it over the years. Charlie, on the other hand, had come back home to find almost all his siblings right in the middle of a war.

But as much as they spoke about the war, they talked about other things more. Charlie told her about Quidditch, and when she had expressed her total apathy toward the sport, he’d chuckled and proceeded to explain it ‘from an academic’s perspective’. Apparently the academic perspective included a brief history lesson and a focus on strategy, and although Hermione still wasn’t convinced she would ever be enthralled by a Quidditch match, she did find it marginally captivating to hear about how this one sport had dominated Wizarding culture, at least in Europe.

She told Charlie about the Arithmancy equations she’d been working on lately, and when he confessed a complete lack of knowledge about the subject, she’d launched into a lecture that had unintentionally taken the majority of a day. They were sitting in his tent that night, and she was sketching a diagram to explain something to him, when she noticed the time.

“Hell, it’s almost midnight,” she cursed, setting down the quill. “Sorry, I’ve been talking about this all day.”

Charlie laughed. “No need to apologize, I’m pretty sure I went on about Quaffle regulations for over an hour the other day. This is pretty fascinating, anyway. Is this supposed to be an oval, or a circle? Does it matter?”

“It does matter, actually,” Hermione said excitedly, picking the quill back up. “This one is an oval, because the horizontal axis needs to be stronger…”

They’d decided to sleep in the next morning, getting a late start, but Charlie shushed her attempts at apologizing. “There’s a reason we didn’t plan this day to day, remember? We can take as much time as we want to.”

Sometimes they decided to stay a day in a town or city, to see the sights or spend the night in an actual building or eat something that hadn’t been magically rewarmed. As they got closer to the Lithuanian Dragon Reserve, though, Hermione noticed that Charlie seemed to be lagging more and more. Walking slower, suggesting they stop more often, staying silent for longer lengths of time. She didn’t want to rush him or bother him, wondered if he was beginning to tire of her company.

Finally they were only a few hours walk away from the Reserve, the sun barely touching the horizon, and Charlie suggested they stop for the night.

“We could make it there before true nightfall, couldn’t we?” Hermione asked. Surely that would be easier, stopping once they got there. There wasn’t a town near the reserve, as there’d been in France, so there were rooms prepared for them.

“Yes,” Charlie agreed hesitantly, and there was something about his expression that made Hermione pause.

“Are you tired? We can stop now, if you want to.”

Charlie sighed. “No, you’re right, it makes more sense to keep going.”

“Have you been there before? We could Apparate.”

“Yeah, I have,” Charlie said, starting to walk again, and she followed him. After a minute, he kept speaking. “It’s the closest reserve to the one in Romania, so we communicated a lot.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, not really knowing why he sounded sad.

They did, indeed, reach the reserve a bit before true nightfall, although not by more than ten minutes. As Charlie walked in, he stopped and turned to her. “I’m sorry for how they might treat us.”

“What?” she asked.

“Hero-worship,” Charlie said. “There’s probably some people here who know me, know about the war. And… there are probably some rumors, too. Not too much happens out here except our lives.”

Hermione laughed a bit, although she wasn’t sure what was funny. “It might be a nice change to see the gossip mill and the hero-worship happen to someone else. Not nice for you, I suppose,” she added hurriedly. “It’ll be nice to meet your friends, since you basically know or are related to all of mine.”

It turned out that there were four or five people here that Charlie knew, and greeted him somewhere between cordially and respectively. Hermione recognized the looks in their eyes, like they were meeting Merlin come back to life, and took back her earlier comment in her mind. It wasn’t a nice change to see it happen to someone else, it just made her see from the outside how fake it all was.

After a few minutes, though, everyone seemed to settle, and conversation came more naturally. They wanted to hear stories about their travels so far, and Charlie and Hermione told them about Paris and the French Dragon Reserve. Hermione mentioned the coffee shop in the middle of the library, and several people were rightfully enraged. Charlie shared the notes and documents he’d gotten from the first reserve, making copies.

“We share these from reserve to reserve too,” one of them, Matis, said. He spoke English well, and Hermione regretted that she couldn’t return the favor. She was going to learn at least a few phrases in Romanian before they got to the next reserve.

“Sharing them as we go is only half of the plan,” Charlie explained. “When our trip is over, I’ll compare all the new strategies and compile it all, and then distribute it to anyone who’s interested.”

“Will sharing the documents not have the same result?” Matis asked.

“Not quite. Reserves share with their closest neighbors, sure, but do you often share the reports of the French Reserve with the Romanian Reserve, unedited?”

Matis shrugged. “I do not know. You think things are changed?”

Charlie nodded. “And information is lost, or you only have half of it. Hopefully the compilation helps bring the best of it all together.”

“It’s a game of telephone,” Hermione realized, and when all the wizards looked at her, she blushed. “It’s a Muggle thing.”

One of the girls spoke to Matis, and he translated. “Gabriele says she is Muggleborn but does not know it.”

And that's how Hermione ended up explaining the game of telephone to a table of dragon tamers. Of course, that led to a demonstration, and with the added language barrier, the results were quite funny. At one point, “omelette du fromage” changed to “salty profession”, and Charlie laughed so hard that he fell out of his chair onto the ground.

The next day they had the obligatory tour, Charlie taking his usual notes, and Hermione found that she could actually focus on the dragons now that she was sure she wouldn’t recognize any of them. Well, that wasn’t automatically true, she thought, grabbing Charlie’s arm. “Where are the dragons from the Triwizard Tournament?” she asked him. This _was_ the closest reserve to the one they had come from, after all.

“Three of them were released into the wild a few years after that,” Charlie told her. “The Common Welsh Green is still at the Romanian Preserve. You probably shouldn’t mention the Tournament around this crowd, though.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, lowering her voice. “Are they mad that dragons were used? I mean, I was too, I suppose, but more because it seemed so dangerous.”

Charlie nodded. “Yeah. It was dangerous for the contestants, and it was dangerous for the dragons, too. The only dragons in captivity are being rehabilitated, after all, and to use them for a competition that could injure them...”

Hermione shivered. “You’re right, I’d never considered that. It’s like circus animals.” And then that needed to be explained, too.

They were sitting with the same witches and wizards that night when one of them spoke up. “Charlie, how is Jack? We have not seen him in an age.”

Charlie cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “I don’t speak to him that often, but we’ll see him on the trip. He’s working on the Australian Reserve.”

“What happened with you two? You were… joined at the hip,” Matis said, pausing to remember the idiom.

“We stopped being joined at the hip,” Charlie said simply, and then shrugged. It was overly casual. “We both left the Reserve around the same time and went in opposite directions. It takes a lot of Floo Powder to talk to Australia from Britain.”

“Oh, but you two were so close, were you not? I remember hearing stories about all the trouble you both got up to. Something about getting caught in a dragon’s cage, and--”

“I imagine the Romanian Reserve is glad we’re not causing trouble anymore,” Charlie said, and though his tone was friendly, it had an edge to it. Matis took the hint and nodded, changing the subject.

That night, as they did their normal review of the next day’s plans, Hermione hesitated, wanting to ask about Jack and what had happened there. Charlie had described him as a friend, someone they’d see in Australia. But he very clearly hadn’t wanted to talk about it, so she stopped herself. This trip wasn’t supposed to be about bonding or discovering each other’s secrets and stories. They were just travelling companions, moving in a parallel line.

A few days later, though, Charlie looked deep in thought, but not in a good way, and she reached out to touch his arm lightly. He jumped slightly.

“Sorry,” she said, both for disturbing his thoughts and scaring him. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding slightly grumpy, then seemed to feel guilty, looking at her. “I’m in a bad mood, sorry.”

“Would you like me to leave?” Hermione asked. She was in his tent eating some sandwiches they’d quickly constructed for lunch, the lettuce on its last legs from their last grocery run a few towns ago.

“No, why?” Charlie asked, seeming honestly confused.

“So you can be alone,” Hermione said. “I know that was sort of the point of this trip, after all, and I kind of ruined that bit of it. So I can go outside and read a book.”

“No, you’re fine,” Charlie said, then chuckled and shook his head. “I just had the thought that I can be alone with you here, which sounds batty.”

“A little,” Hermione admitted.

Charlie leaned back in his chair. “After growing up in my house and then working at a dragon reserve, sharing a space with one person who spends most of her time reading anyway is kind of like living in a constant library.”

“You said that the fact you didn’t know me negated wanting to be alone,” Hermione said. She’d been curious about that since he’d said it. She knew why it made sense to her, but had he meant it the same way?

It wasn’t a question, but he answered it anyway. “I guess it was less that I wanted to be alone and more that I didn’t want to… bring any past with me. If I’d gone with a mate or one of my brothers, it’d be like a continuation of my past with them, instead of a new thing. If that makes sense. Which it doesn’t, really.”

“No, it does,” Hermione said, leaning forward. “I thought about asking Harry or Ron to… run away with me, I suppose, for lack of a better phrase. But they already know me, and I’m trying to be some kind of new me or something. Me without the influence of how they know me.”

Charlie pointed at her. “Exactly. Although I don’t think we can say we don’t know each other anymore.”

“Yeah, but if this is a new me, then you only know the new me,” Hermione mused. 

“Alright, my turn,” Charlie said. “You said you wanted to get out but toward something. What does that mean?”

Hermione laughed. “I don’t know, honestly.” She paused, gathering thoughts, and Charlie got up to refill his cup of tea. When he sat back down, she tried to explain. “I needed to leave London. The publicity, the Ministry, all the memories and the past and the expectations messing with my head. But I don’t like to run away from things. It makes me feel weak, and anxious.”

“Gryffindor,” Charlie accused, and she acknowledged his point with a nod.

“So I needed to get away, but I couldn’t be running away from those things. I needed to be running toward something, or at least walking in a specific direction.”

“Huh,” Charlie said. “I get it, about wanting to get away from the memories and the expectations and everything. But it’s more about the project for me. I’m traveling the world, taking some time away from all the stuff that happened, and getting something done instead of sitting at the Burrow across from Fred’s empty chair. I also just liked the idea of silence, for a while. No one making plans for the future.”

“That’s all anyone’s doing at home, is making plans!” Hermione threw up her hands and Charlie hid a smile behind his teacup. “Not just day-to-day plans, but huge plans for the future. They’re laying out their whole lives, and they’re just constantly _talking_ about everything that’s going to happen.”

“They’re just talking in general,” Charlie joked.

She nodded. “Exactly.” She paused, something occuring to her. “If you actually want to talk less, that’s okay with me. If I need to be quiet more often, walk in silence, that sort of thing.”

“No, you’re fine,” Charlie said. “Am I talking too much? You brought that whole bag of books, and you’ve only gotten through what, five? I remember you bringing ten to our house for one Christmas and getting through them all, I think.”

Hermione laughed. “That’s probably accurate. No, you’re definitely not talking too much. How about, if either of us want to exist in silence or be alone, we tell the other one?”

“And,” Charlie added, “the rest of the time we assume that we both want to be talking or coexisting.”

Hermione nodded. “Agreed.” She felt reassured, that Charlie wasn’t regretting bringing her, wasn’t tired of her talking. Then she remembered how this conversation had started. “Why are you in a bad mood?” The sandwiches weren’t _that_ bad.

He sighed. “We’re almost to the Romanian Reserve.”

“You said you left because you didn’t want people treating you like a war hero, right?” Hermione certainly understood his reluctance to return.

“Sort of,” Charlie looked sheepish. “It’s mostly because of Jack, though.”

“Your friend in Australia?”

“Yeah. We had a… thing, when we both worked at the Reserve, and even though he doesn’t work there anymore…” he shook his head.

“You dated him?” Hermione asked. She remembered Ron mentioning that lecture, something about a relationship that wasn’t the same as most relationships, but Ron certainly hadn’t relayed it to her, so she wasn’t quite sure if he’d actually dated anyone.

“Sort of?” Charlie said. “It depends on who you ask.”

Hermione laughed. “I’d think you and Jack would know best.”

“Well, we’re the ones who disagreed.”

“Huh?”

Charlie snorted, shaking his head. “It’s exactly as convoluted as you’re imagining. There were a lot of misunderstandings, and a lot of miscommunications, and a lot of hurt feelings, and it basically turned the Romanian Reserve into a bunch of bad memories with some dragons thrown in.”

“And that’s why you didn’t want to go back.”

“Yup,” Charlie said, leaning his chair back onto two legs and closing his eyes. “You can see why I told Mum it was the war hero thing, though. She’d just tut and try to set me up with nice boys in Ottery St. Catchpole.”

Hermione shook her head, wondering if sitting like a reckless lunatic was a Gryffindor thing, a boy thing, or a Quidditch player thing. Why were all of her friends male Gryffindor Quidditch players? “She hasn’t tried to set me up with anyone, actually.”

“She’s waiting for you to get back together with Ron,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “She’s not going to press you on each other, obviously, but she’s certainly not going to suggest anyone else. Not unless one of the others breaks up with their girlfriend.”

“Is she waiting for Ginny and Harry, too?” 

“Absolutely,” Charlie told her, eyes still shut. “If any of you four come out as anything but straight, though, I think she’d be willing to switch those up.”

Hermione cackled. “Ginny and I would be a disaster.”

“Oh?” Charlie asked. “I think Harry and Ron would be worse.”

“Putting _aside_ the fact that they’re practically brothers, at least they get along for lengths of time,” Hermione pointed out. “I love Ginny, but she’s really quite intense and energetic and just… busy. My head hurts just watching her, sometimes.”

“She had to be, with six older brothers.”

“True. Ginny and Harry are going to get back together, anyway,” Hermione said.

“Really?” Charlie said, the chair coming down to the floor again hard. “How do you know?”

“Well, they both talk about each other all the time,” Hermione said, and Charlie sniggered at how tired she sounded. “They both, individually, have started making plans for the future after they get their careers going.”

“Do the futures match up?”

“Close enough,” Hermione said, thinking back. “Harry wants to teach, you know, but not necessarily at Hogwarts, and he’s got a pretty good ear for languages. He just wants to get a small house somewhere and settle down, teach at a nearby school. Ginny wants a home base, near whatever Quidditch team she ends up playing on permanently. Something to come back to, was the impression I got.”

“He’s her home base,” Charlie said quietly, smiling widely. “That’s adorable.”

“It really is,” Hermione admitted. “It’d be cuter if they told each other instead of me all the time, but I think taking a break was good for them. This way they get to come back together and know they each figured it out for themselves, you know?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, musing. “That was the problem with me and Jack, really. We were always together, and we were trying so hard to be whatever the other one wanted, so we ended up crossing our own boundaries.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.

“What boundaries?” Hermione asked, curious.

Charlie shook his head, and she thought she’d pressed too hard, but then he spoke. “I thought that he wanted… more of a physical relationship than I did.” He’d turned a little red, but kept going. “Turns out he thought the same thing about me, so we’d do things, and then realize that we’d both been doing it for the other one.” Hermione must have been making a concerned face, because he went on. “It wasn’t anything that either of us weren’t okay with, it just made things… awkward. We were just really awkward, because we were horrible at talking about things. Which seems so silly, because when we became friends in the first place we talked _constantly_. Of course, it turned out we were doing that to make each other happy, too.” He sighed. “Basically, we were both way too obliging, and it didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said. She felt like she should share too, now, and even it out a little. “Ron and I were sort of similar, actually.”

Charlie looked at her, listening.

“He was always telling me I could do anything I wanted, and he would support me,” she started, “but I didn’t know that I wanted the things he was thinking of, y’know? So he was trying to be what I needed, but it wasn’t quite right. And I was always trying to figure out what he needed, but I’m not sure he knows exactly what he needs.”

“You two seem okay, though,” Charlie ventured. “Unless you’re putting up a front at the Weasley dinner table.”

“No, we’re okay,” Hermione admitted. “It was hard for a bit, because whenever we’d go places together, the rumors would all start flying again. So we stopped hanging out, and it got a little weird then. But we both agreed we should take a break, and I think we both know…” she trailed off, because she hadn’t actually discussed this with Ron, but Charlie wouldn’t tell. “I think we both know that it’s a permanent break, or at least a really long one. There are plenty of rumors and stories about that, too.”

“Merlin, the rumors are the worst part,” Charlie groaned. “Part of me is excited to see the reserve in a couple of days, but mostly I’m just waiting to be bombarded with all the drama again. Everyone got really invested in me and Jack. I mean, the staff isn’t that large, so it’s understandable. But it definitely didn’t help matters.”

Hermione nodded, understanding perfectly. “Because then you had your expectations, Jack’s expectations, _and_ everyone else’s expectations to worry about.”

“Exactly. There was this huge love story spun around us, even though it wasn’t really… like that. People would come up and see how we were doing, surprise us with picnic baskets…”

“It sounds invasive,” Hermione said. “I hope they’re not still like that.”

“I guess we’ll see in a few days,” Charlie said, resigned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is 'omelette du fromage' a really, really specific reference to the fic Text Talk? You bet.


	6. Tainted

The Romanian Dragon Reserve was beautiful. It was larger than either of the other two had been, and Hermione found herself staring around in wonder pretty much constantly. It helped that Charlie knew all the best views and when different dragons would be in flight. But although it was beautiful, Hermione was worried. Charlie had seemed stressed since they’d gotten here the day before, and it was only getting worse. People weren’t talking about Jack, and at first she’d thought that was a good thing, but it had hit her this morning that no one had even mentioned him, not even in the way that Matis had. They were very deliberately _not_ talking about him, she realized, and knew from experience that that could be even worse. At least it seemed like there had been enough of a staff overturn, though, because Charlie only knew maybe five people personally. 

They were walking this morning, Hermione having asked to see the Welsh Green from the Triwizard Tournament. She wanted to see for herself that she was unharmed, even though she remembered that Fleur had just put the dragon to sleep. They passed an empty enclosure and Charlie glanced at it, then away, looking even more stressed.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Just memories, I’ll be fine,” Charlie told her, glancing back at the enclosure again before it went out of sight. “That’s where Jack and I… broke up, I guess you could say. At least one of the times that we did,” he added bitterly.

“Can I try something?” Hermione asked, stopping, something occuring to her.

“What?”

“Come on,” she said, walking back to the empty enclosure. When they were both staring at it, she said, “Do you have a happy memory associated with this place? It doesn’t have to be about Jack.”

Charlie hummed thoughtfully. “This is where the first egg I ever watched over hatched,” he said finally. “A baby Horntail, actually, from the same dragon we brought to the tournament. She was gorgeous,” he said, smiling as he remembered.

“Okay,” Hermione said, smiling with him. Trust Charlie Weasley to think of a baby Hungarian Horntail as a happy memory. Although Norberta had been cute, in her own fire-breathing way. “So focus on the memory, and sort of… attach it to this place. Play it back in your mind while you stand here.”

Charlie turned to look at her. “This is what you did with the tent, that first night.”

“Yep,” she confirmed.

He nodded and turned back to the field, concentrating. Finally he stopped and seemed to relax, looking around as if puzzled to find himself in the present.

Hermione nudged him. “Did it help?”

“It did, actually,” he said. “Thank you. You may have just made this walk a lot longer, though.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to have to stop and do that again, I think.”

True to his word, Charlie stopped them a few more times before they got to the Welsh Green, staring at a certain field or a tree or, once, a large rock, and focusing for a moment before they moved on. It turned out the Welsh Green’s enclosure was on the top of a hill, so when they reached it, they both turned around on instinct to look at the view. It was gorgeous, of course, but Charlie huffed a breath in what sounded like annoyance and sat down on the ground, staring at all the landmarks below that they’d passed on the way up.

“They’ve disappeared,” he said morosely. 

“The memories?”

“Yes. Or maybe a different angle requires a different focus. Or maybe this whole place is ruined for me now!” He threw up his hands, frustrated.

“You’ve only been at it for maybe an hour,” Hermione admonished him gently. “It does take practice, you know.”

He sighed and looked at her. “I guess. I just hate that this whole place is tainted with it. Like, here’s where Jack kissed me even though neither of us really wanted to do that! Here’s where we fought about whether we wanted to move in together! Those rocks are where we sat in silence for hours, just trying to say anything to each other that wasn’t unbearably awkward, somehow.”

“I had to walk through Hogwarts… it must have been a hundred times,” Hermione said, sitting down on a nearby stump. “It didn’t help that everything was all repaired, so every hallway seemed like it could be where Fred died, or where Remus and Tonks died, or…” she trailed off, her throat getting tight. She didn’t want to do this here, add another sad memory to Charlie’s tainted place. “I must have poured thousands of happy memories into every classroom, every hallway, and I still ended up leaving. But just remembering the happy times made it easier.”

“Yeah.” Charlie smiled. “I had forgotten about that Horntail hatching, and the huge game of capture the flag a bunch of us played up here.” He stood up, holding out a hand to help her up. “Thank you,” he added as they made their way to the Welsh Green enclosure. “I appreciate you sharing your trick with me. Okay, now just stand here. She’s probably heard and smelled and seen us already, so we’ll just wait a bit and see if she shows.”

At dinner that night, a woman sat down opposite them. Her name was Ana, and Charlie had introduced her yesterday as someone who had started working there about the same time he had. He had seemed uncomfortable, though, and Hermione had wondered if she was one of the people who had become overly invested in his life.

“Where are you going after this?” Ana asked conversationally.

“Bulgaria,” Hermione answered, “To see an old friend of mine.”

“Then the Chinese Reserve,” Charlie added.

“Australia after that?” She still sounded conversational, but Hermione could tell that this was really what she’d been getting at. Maybe she was just curious, Hermione thought, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Eventually,” Charlie said shortly. “There are a lot of stops on the list.”

“Have you met Jack?” Ana asked Hermione. “He used to work here, but he’s at the Reserve down there now. You probably know that, I imagine Charlie’s mentioned him.” She smiled sadly at Charlie, who was looking rather stonily at his soup. “They were so cute,” she sighed at Hermione.

“What made you want to work at a dragon reserve?” Hermione asked, not caring that the segue was almost rude. 

Ana paused for a moment but then answered, describing how she’d learned about dragons in school and always dreamed of caring for them. Charlie leaned forward to grab the water pitcher, but pressed his shoulder into Hermione’s purposely for a moment. She pushed back a little, a ‘you’re welcome’ to his silent ‘thank you’. She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t been sure if changing the subject was the right way to go, but as long as Charlie was okay, then she was glad she’d done it.

Later that night, she confirmed it. “Was it fine that I did that earlier, just made Ana stop talking about Jack?” she asked Charlie as they were putting away the map. “Sometimes when people do that to me, change the subject to try and shield me from stuff, it makes me angry. But I didn’t want to make it a thing.”

“You were fine. Thank you, for not making it a thing,” Charlie said, smiling at her wording. “When I worked here I’d call her on it, confront her. She used to comment on us all the time, and it was annoying and just...she kept sighing and saying how romantic we were, and that’s not something I was comfortable with. Now that I’m only visiting, though… why stir up trouble? It’s not going to change her behavior at this point.”

“Alright. Good to know, and that makes sense,” Hermione said. “Do you want some tea?”

“Please. What do people try to shield you from?”

“Descriptions of the war, mostly.”

“Don’t they think you probably have worse memories than most of those descriptions?” Charlie asked, and Hermione smiled. That was exactly what she had said, more than once.

Viktor had written her back about a week ago with a few days he was free, and the timing meant they really had to use the Floo network to get there. Hermione didn’t like breaking their walking streak, but she could only imagine the constraints of the Quidditch season, so she and Charlie said goodbye to the people at the Romanian Reserve and stepping through the fire into the public Floo center in the Wizarding side of Varna. They fought through the crowds to the street outside and immediately were hit with the smell of the sea, something Hermione hadn’t smelled since they’d crossed the English Channel by ferry. She smiled and looked around -- Viktor had agreed to meet them there. Apparently his flat here was rather hidden, so as to maintain his privacy.

“Hermione!” she heard, and turned. There was Viktor, waving at her over the crowd, and she moved toward him after making sure that Charlie was following. They reached him and she paused, unsure whether a hug or a handshake was more appropriate. Viktor decided for her, grabbing her hand with both of his and holding it as he continued speaking. “It is wonderful to see you at last. Come, we will go out of the street.”

“Alright,” she barely had time to say before they were moving. Luckily, Viktor Krum had never been short or small, and he made a sizeable hole in the crowd that she and Charlie hurried through.

After walking for maybe ten minutes, they ducked into an alleyway, and Viktor turned and held out his hands. “We must apparate there,” he said, an apology in his voice. “It is unavailable from the street.”

Hermione gripped one of his hands, Charlie the other, and then they were squeezed through what Hermione thought of as a wormhole into a lovely little walled garden. She looked around, and sure enough, there were no doors to the outside, only one that seemed to lead into a small cottage. “Can no one come in without Apparating?”

“There are a few places connected by Floo,” Viktor said, who looked much calmer now that they were out of public. “But most of the time, no. And no one who has not been here before can come in.” He turned to Charlie and held out a hand. “I am sorry, I did not greet you before, I do not like crowds. I am Viktor Krum.”

“Yes, I know,” Charlie babbled, slightly pink in the face, and Hermione tried her hardest not to giggle at his reaction to the Quidditch star. “I’m Charlie Weasley,” he said finally, still holding onto Viktor’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” He finally released the handshake, looking at his own hand in accusation, and then glanced at Hermione in desperation. 

She smiled, trying to hide her laughter. “Your garden is lovely, Viktor.”

“Thank you!” he said, smiling widely. “I find that gardening is a lovely hobby, and there are plants that can be left for a time while I am traveling. It is a good arrangement. Would you like to come inside?”

“Yes, absolutely!” Hermione agreed, following him into the cottage. She had expected something larger, comically large, actually, befitting a famous person. But of course, she was a famous person, she realized, and she had a one-bedroom flat. Why had she thought Viktor would be any different?

Charlie leaned over and whispered to her, “I can’t even _talk_ to him, Hermione, this is embarrassing. I mean, I know all his stats for the last seven years, and I’ve practiced all his moves, and…”

“Just calm down,” Hermione whispered back, grinning at him. “He’s a person who’s good at Quidditch, remember? Just like we’re people who won a war.”

Charlie shot her a look that might have been embarrassment and leaned away. “Your house is very nice,” he told Viktor, who had led them into what must be the sitting room. The cottage was not quite as small now that they were inside, but it wasn’t opulent in the least. A sitting room in here, what Hermione supposed was a study or an office through one door, a kitchen to their left.

“Thank you. It was one of the first things I bought, after I made the team,” Viktor said, walking into the kitchen. “Would you like some tea, Hermione, Charlie?”

Hermione noticed now that he was saying her name correctly. She smiled, remembering how charming it had been when he had practiced it in preparation for the Yule Ball. “Yes please,” she said, and heard Charlie echo her. 

The tea was lovely, although the food was a little rough--it turned out Viktor had almost nothing in his cupboards. “I am always traveling or training,” he said in apology.

Hermione laughed a bit at his guilty expression. “I imagine you are,” she said. “We’ve been living off canned food and dehydrated things, so this looks fantastic.” That was not strictly true, as they’d spent the last few days at the reserve and the food had been excellent, but Viktor looked greatly cheered.

Charlie relaxed as they ate and drank and as Viktor proved himself to be just a truly cheerful, slightly awkward person. Hermione realized that they were a bit alike, really, and remembered hearing that Charlie could have become a professional Quidditch player if he’d wanted to. Viktor was only two years younger than him. They would have run in the same circles, probably gotten along.

“You know, Charlie was rumored to be the next great professional seeker,” Hermione said brightly, ignoring the warning looks Charlie was giving her. “He’s been trying to get me interested in the game.”

“It will be quite a feat if you can do it,” Viktor said, grinning, showing front teeth that had likely been knocked out a time or two. “I must have explained the rules of Quidditch to her ten times, but they did not stick in her head. I found it quite refreshing, myself, to find a witch who had not a care for my profession.” He smiled at Hermione, a quirk of his lips, and she ducked her head and felt herself blush slightly. She’d forgotten how charming he was. “Why did you not play Quidditch after school?” he asked Charlie, and she composed herself. She wasn’t interested in Viktor, not really. Even when they’d been at the Yule Ball, it had merely been fun, a boy who had found her pretty and interesting, nothing more serious than that. And then they’d become pen pals, which had been even more fun, a glimpse into the life of someone who traveled the world doing what he loved.

“...and then I saw a dragon once, while I was up in Scotland, and I was done for,” Charlie was saying. “I still play sometimes, though.”

“The Weasleys have pick-up games all the time,” Hermione said. “I sit on the ground and keep score.”

“Yes, you do not like to fly, I remember,” Viktor said. “But you, Charlie, would you like to see my field?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Charlie said, almost spilling the remains of his tea in his hurry to get up.

They followed Viktor again, this time out the back door of his house, and Hermione gasped. Here the walls opened up, a half-size Quidditch field before them.

“Are those regulation hoops?” Charlie asked in awe.

“Yes,” Viktor said, “I had to petition for them to place them here. They did not want to. But I signed a lot of autographs and they allowed me to put them up.”

Hermione knew that had been a great concession for him. Viktor had been cursed with the double luck of being incredibly talented and incredibly shy, and did public appearances as little as possible.

“Er,” Charlie said, sounding breathless, and Hermione looked where he was pointing, to a glass case on the back of the house. Oh, a broom. Of course. “Is that the new Firebolt Supreme?”

“Yes, they have sent one to me so I will review it,” Viktor said.

Charlie walked toward it as if swimming through Gillyweed, and Hermione almost laughed at the absolute awe on his face.

“Would you like to ride it?” Viktor called to him, and Charlie seemed to rotate on the spot.

“Yes, I would.”

“Go ahead,” Viktor told him, “The case is not locked.”

“You may have made this entire trip worthwhile for him,” Hermione told Viktor, grinning at Charlie’s face as he opened the glass and took at the broom, a look of reverence on his face like he was holding a pitcher of gold, or maybe a baby dragon.

“I am glad,” Viktor said, looking down at her with smiling eyes. They watched Charlie take off, whooping as he flew in quick circles, then sweeping arcs. “He is a good flyer, this one.”

“Yes, he is,” Hermione agreed. Charlie was graceful in a way that not all Quidditch players were, she decided. It was like he was dancing, somehow.

Viktor was still looking at her. “You are with him?”

“Yes,” she said and then looked up at him in surprise as she understood what she was asked. “Oh! No, not like that. We’re not dating.” It was actually the first time someone had made that error, which was in itself slightly surprising, considering what she’d experienced in the past with her male friends.

“Ah. You are dating no one right now, yes?”

She looked up at him warily. “No, I’m not dating anyone.”

He laughed at her expression. “I do not ask for myself, Hermione, do not worry yourself. I am just wondering about you, you have not written recently.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Hermione said, relaxing. “A lot of things have been happening. This trip was sudden, too.”

“Oh?”

“Charlie was talking about it one night at dinner, and I decided that I wanted to go. We left a few days later.”

“That is sudden, yes.” Viktor paused. “You are alright?”

Hermione considered the question. She usually answered with ‘Fine’, but she knew Viktor well. And if she was finding herself, she should be honest. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure what I’m doing with my life, and it’s confusing me.”

“Ah. You took the trip to find out what to do?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Is it helping?”

“It is, actually.” Hermione smiled as Charlie flew through the goal hoops in rapid succession, trying not to hold her breath. He would be fine.

“He is helping?”

Hermione stopped watching Charlie defy death and looked back at her friend. “I told you, I’m not dating him.”

Viktor shrugged. “You do not need to date him for him to help.”

Hermione considered that. “Then yes, I suppose he’s helping, too. It’s nice to just… exist with someone.”

Viktor hummed in agreement. “I may take a trip too, soon. I have seen doctors that tell me I should not play for many more seasons.”

“Why?” Hermione asked, shocked. He was still one of the top players in the world, wasn’t he? “I know you love it.”

“Yes, of course, but I have hit my head many times.” He frowned, tapping the side of his head. “Sometimes the Wronski Feint is not a feint at all, and the hospitals say that it will give me problems if I play too much longer.”

“I’m sorry, Viktor,” she said. “That’s not fair.”

He shrugged. “It is the truth, fair or not fair. I love Quidditch and my team, but I love my garden as well, and other things. Just because life is different does not mean it is bad.”

Charlie had gone into the clouds and was diving down. Hermione, who had seen Harry attempt the Wronski Feint many a time, should not have been worried, but Viktor’s talk about doctors and hospitals had her stepping forward in concern. Charlie rocketed toward the ground, chasing an invisible snitch, but pulled up just in time. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Honestly, male Gryffindor Quidditch players.

“Perfect form!” Viktor cried, running forward to clap Charlie on the back as he sank back to the ground. “That was beautiful, my friend, how amazing!”


	7. Purpose

They walked part of the way to the Reserve in China, but the easily walkable part of their journey was over for a while. So Hermione got them two tickets on a Muggle train and off they went, rushing past countries so fast she almost couldn’t keep track. Charlie, for his part, had wanted to take an airplane, but Hermione managed to convince him that yes, having Conjured identification really might be a problem. She could tell he still didn’t quite believe her.

They had found seats apart from the other passengers and Charlie had his usual ‘Wizarding Tourist’ face on, checking out every button or switch in arm’s reach. “Not that one,” Hermione said, putting out her hand to keep him from calling one of the attendants. “That’s just if you need help, you can call someone.”

“Is it a telephone?” he asked excitedly. “It’s so small.”

“You sound like your dad,” she told him, but explained anyway. “It just lights up something in their area, I think, and they come talk to us.”

Charlie nodded, fascinated. “You know, I took Muggle Studies, but we learned about things like… plumbing. You’re a much better teacher.”

Hermione scoffed. “I used to look at Lavender’s Muggle Studies book over her shoulder. It’s the most random information, I’m surprised anyone learns anything. And it’s very out of date.”

“Wasn’t Professor Burbage a Muggleborn?”

“I don’t know, actually. I don’t think I ever spoke with her.” Hermione spared a moment of silence for the former Muggle Studies professor and victim of the war.

“What would you teach?” Charlie asked after a minute.

Hermione leaned forward--she’d given this a lot of thought. “Third year, how to act like a Muggle. Clothing, terms. Money. The tube.”

He nodded. “Help them blend when they’re younger, help them fit in if they need to.”

“Fourth and Fifth year is Muggle history, Fourth year being in the UK and Fifth year expanding to the world. Sixth year is how Wizarding and Muggle culture have collided, overlapped, that sort of thing.”

“Seventh year?”

“Independent study,” Hermione finished proudly. “You choose a Muggle topic or concept and do your own research, including experiencing it.”

Charlie hummed, looking thoughtful. “You really _should_ teach this class, ‘Mione.”

She made a face. “No thank you.”

“Why not?”

“Firstly, I’m not a good teacher. I’m not patient enough, and I want things done perfectly. All those times I just fixed Ron and Harry’s essays instead of helping them learn the material is proof enough of that.”

Charlie nodded. “That makes sense. Secondly?”

“Secondly, the Ministry already asked me to write a book that was basically a new Muggle Studies textbook. A manual of sorts to teach people that Muggleborns aren’t lesser.” She sighed. “It’s a good idea, I suppose, and a worthy cause and I could do it. People would read it, if I was the one who wrote it.”

“But?”

“But haven’t I done my part in the war against blood supremacy?” Hermione ranted, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Why do I need to be the expert on Muggleborns for the Wizarding World?”

“You don’t,” Charlie said calmly. “But I feel like part of you… wants to. Wasn’t there something about saving house-elves that you were a part of?” He shook his head. “But here I am, telling you what you should want to do. Ignore me. You don’t need to do anything for the Ministry that you don’t want to do.”

Hermione sighed. “No, that’s the problem, because you’re right. Part of me wants to help the Muggleborn cause as much as I can, to use my spotlight. I’m not the only Muggleborn who fought in the war, but I’m the only one people seem to care about, and if talking and writing about it helps…”

“What does the other part of you think?” Charlie asked, sitting back and just looking at her, listening.

“The other part of me thinks that I don’t want to speak for all Muggleborns everywhere! Who am I to say how the Wizarding World should interact with the Muggle World? The problem with my ‘house-elf’ thing,” she drew air quotes around the phrase, unwilling to call it S.P.E.W. in front of a Weasley, “was that the house-elves didn’t ask me to speak for them. Muggleborns didn’t ask me, either.”

“You don’t think they’d be okay with it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, collapsing back into her chair. “And there’s no way to know. To not speak for them felt like abandoning them, and to speak for them felt like undermining them, and I basically felt like I was carrying the entire Muggleborn population on my shoulders.”

“Thus the impromptu trip?”

“Thus the impromptu trip.”

Charlie smiled tiredly. “I’m in support of running away from conflict, Merlin knows. But we’re going to loop back around to England at some point.”

“I don’t know that I’m running away,” Hermione said, thinking about it. She had wanted to come on the trip to get away from it, yes, but not to avoid it altogether. “I was trying to find the answer, I suppose, and I didn’t think I would figure it out from inside my flat.”

“How utterly healthy of you, Hermione,” Charlie said, shaking his head with a smile. “I think I just full-on ran.”

“But you’re not running from a decision, are you?” Hermione asked. Unless you’re still trying to figure things out between you and Jack? Is that why we’re headed in his direction? She asked those last two silently, because she didn’t want to press him. It wasn’t her business, especially if it was at the core of why he had taken this trip.

“Not exactly. Or… I suppose I am, it’s just that I’m running from one that’s already happened.”

Hermione nodded, not really understanding and yet understanding at the same time. Wasn’t she trying to avoid the expectations she had built for herself through all her decisions?

Hermione’s first impression of the Dragon Reserve in Wizarding China was that it was very, very cold. Impressively cold, really, to the point where she almost felt like congratulating the frost on a job well done.

“It’s not _this cold_ in China,” she hissed to Charlie as they made their way to their lodgings behind their guide-slash-translator, Patrick, who had a stronger British accent than they did. “Is it?”

“We’re in the mountains,” he said, trying to grin at her discomfort, but his teeth were chattering.

“The other reserves were in the mountains!” she countered, stomping her feet on the ground to knock some snow off as Patrick fumbled for the keys to the door in front of them.

“This reserve was built as high up as could be found, and then was charmed even colder,” Patrick told her as he finally unlocked the door and ushered them inside.

“Why?!” Hermione asked.

Charlie dropped his pack to the floor and started brushing snow off the coat he’d purchased at the foot of the mountain. “Because the dragons here are cold-climate dragons. This is the foremost Reserve for dragons native to the poles and places near them.”

Patrick had already charmed a fire to life in the fireplace, and Hermione rushed to put her hands in front of it. “They couldn’t just charm the enclosures?”

Patrick shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“They couldn’t chance them failing,” Charlie told her, apparently more willing to appease her curiosity than Patrick, who was already shuffling through his bag for something. “Some of the breeds up here will die above a certain temperature. So they keep it all permanently cold.”

Hermione sighed. She certainly couldn’t be mad about something designed to keep dragons safe and healthy. But bloody hell, it was the height of summer, and the coat she had bought alongside Charlie was not cutting it. She stuck her hands closer to the fire.

“Here is a map of the reserve,” Patrick said, holding it out to Charlie. “We are here.” He pointed to a building marked in blue. “I will meet you here,” he indicated a larger building a ways away, “tomorrow morning for breakfast, and then you can speak to the various people here, and ask your questions. Sound good?”

“It sounds great.”

“Good. Rooms are here and here, bathroom is in the middle, towels and everything in the closet, see you tomorrow.” And with that he was gone, opening the door again and disappearing into the snow.

Hermione and Charlie sat on the couch for a few minutes more, warming their hands, and then Hermione realized she was drifting off to sleep. “Mind if I claim the bathroom first?” she asked.

“Oh, sure,” Charlie answered, opening his eyes and sitting up, and she realized he’d almost fallen asleep too. They hadn’t even walked today, but something about being by a warm fire on a cold night was enough to make even the most caffeinated person yawn.

“Thanks,” she said as she dragged her bag into her room, grabbing the stuff she needed and running into the bathroom. She stood under the hot spray of the shower for a while, reveling in the warmth, and then hurriedly put on her pajamas. “All yours,” she called to Charlie as she walked through the main room into her room, and basically lept under the covers.

She thought she’d fall asleep instantly, having almost done so less than an hour ago, but something about the combination of a strange bed, freezing toes, and a day with almost no exercise made her toss and turn, which in turn made her colder. Finally she cursed the evolution that had caused cold-climate creatures to start existing, cursed her inability to pack properly, and dragged her blanket, a book, and a collapsible mug out to the main room. Tea and a book by the fire it was, then.

She had just settled in when there was a noise from the other bedroom and Charlie came padding out, wrapped in his own blanket and carrying his notes from the past reserves. She laughed slightly, and he jerked his eyes up to meet hers, clearly surprised. “Tea, you’re a genius,” he finally said, summoning his own mug. “Is there a kettle?”

Hermione wanted to tease him about being a wizard who could Conjure things, but she knew as well as he did that Conjured objects were never quite right, and tea made in a Conjured kettle or drunk out of Conjured mugs somehow tasted wrong no matter how you made it.

“ _Accio_ kettle,” she tried, but nothing came whizzing at them, and she sighed. “Apparently not.”

“They’re not used to visitors from Wizarding Britain. Pity,” Charlie lamented. “A hot drink sounds divine.”

“Oh!” Hermione said, remembering something Harry had slipped into her bag. “ _Accio_ hot chocolate.”

“Cheers, ‘Mione,” Charlie said, catching the canister as it flew out of her room.

Five minutes later they were both sipping hot chocolate happily, although not as happily as they would have been if either of them had brought marshmallows. “Couldn’t sleep?” Hermione asked.

“Too cold. Too much thinking.”

Hermione fully agreed with the first thing, so asked about the second. “Thinking about what?”

Charlie held the notes aloft. “These are alright, but they’re certainly not revolutionary.”

“Do they need to be?”

“Well, I really didn’t want to explain to people reading my CV in the future about finding myself. If I travel the world and publish something extraordinary about reserves, though, that seems legitimate, doesn’t it?”

“It’s legitimate either way,” Hermione told him, reaching out to pat his leg. They were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, each wrapped in their own quilts. Hermione realized that this was actually weirdly informal. They’d always parted ways before bed, gone to separate tents or buildings or rooms in an inn, met back up in the morning. It was a bit strange to see Charlie now, like he had changed into a different person at dusk. “People see traveling the world as a good thing. It makes you worldly, makes you more mature.”

“I think the war made everyone plenty more mature.”

Hermione shrugged. “Maybe during everything. It made me feel younger when it was over, though.”

“Why?”

“I’d missed everything,” she said slowly, stopping to sip her cocoa, wanting to explain this right. “It’s not really that I felt younger, that’s not it. I felt… cheated, and unsure of things. It’s like I didn’t grow up right, somehow, so now I didn’t grow up at all. I definitely have no idea what I’m doing in my life, not like I’m supposed to.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s supposed to be like,” Charlie said with a grimace. “I graduated Hogwarts well before the war, you know, and I had no idea what I was doing either.”

“That actually makes me feel a bit better.”

“I’m glad.” Charlie chuckled, leaning his head back against the arm of the couch. “It certainly didn’t help _me_ any, since I’m in the same spot of trouble six or seven years later.”

Hermione smiled, leaning her own head back. The cocoa was making her warm enough to be drowsy again. “You’ll figure it out. We’ll both figure it out.”

Hermione woke up the next morning with only one distinct feeling: cold. Bloody hell, it was cold. She opened her eyes slowly, almost not wanting to assault her eyeballs with the temperature, and reached for her wand, thinking only of warmth. By the time she had found it, on the table behind her head, her brain had woken up enough to inject more than a singular thought into her mind. Cold, yes. Alone, no. She sat up, realizing that her feet were slightly less cold than the rest of her, and then realized that they were warmer because they were cocooned with Charlie’s in the center of the couch, covered with both their quilts.

It was certainly not the first time Hermione had woken up somehow intertwined with a friend, as late-night Common Room studying was a staple of Gryffindor House, but she pulled back automatically to give Charlie back his personal space as she aimed her wand at the dead fire to resurrect it and maybe bring some feeling back to her nose.

“Huh-whatelda?” Charlie asked.

“Good morning,” Hermione said, choosing not to try and translate whatever he had just tried to tell her.

He blinked at her blearily for a moment before seeming to process his surroundings, then pulled his feet backwards until he was curled into a tight ball on his side of the couch. “Shite, sorry,”

“It’s perfectly fine,” Hermione said, although now that he was reacting strangely, she wondered if she should apologize in turn. “I suppose we fell asleep out here.”

“My room was bloody freezing.”

“Everything is bloody freezing,” Hermione sighed.

Charlie looked at her rather bemusedly. “You almost never curse. It’s cold in England too, you know.”

“It’s fucking cold, Charlie Weasley, and I’ll express that how I please,” she snapped, having got quite enough of the how-unladylike routine from Lavendar and Parvati over the years.

“Oi,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t say you couldn’t. Just took me by surprise, is all. We’re leaving tonight, anyway, so no more nights by the fire.”

Hermione hummed, clambering out from under her quilt and folding it quickly. “I agree completely with getting out of here, although maybe we should start building fires on the road. It’s nice, you know? Sitting around them, talking.” She tucked the quilt under her arm. “I’m going to go get ready so we can meet Patrick.”

Hermione cast Warming Charms on both her and Charlie’s outerwear, but she was still relieved when they climbed back down the mountain that evening and stayed at a Wizarding hostel in a nearby town. “What are you doing?” she asked him as they sat in the common area, Hermione applying her usual careful charms to her hair.

“Writing up the notes from today,” he said, not taking his eyes off the paper in front of him. “I couldn’t write when we were walking around, it was too cold. My handwriting is atrocious even when I’m standing still, anyway.”

“I think that may be a Weasley trait,” Hermione commented, thinking of all of Ron’s essays that she’d deciphered over the years.

“Take that up with Percy,” Charlie joked.

“You know, I really should.”

That was apparently interesting enough to make Charlie look up. “Huh?”

Hermione smiled. “Not really, not like that. But I should go talk to him, visit him. He was one of my first friends, you know.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Yes. I was just the annoying know-it-all Muggleborn girl, curious about everything in the Wizarding World. He must have answered a million questions and told me more that I never thought to ask about. Of course, it was sort of his job, he was a Prefect.”

“Still, I bet he loved that, someone actually wanting to know all that about the Wizarding World.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to ask him about it. And about loads of other things, of course. I’ll bet he knows exactly how the Ministry really works.”

Charlie grinned, turning back to his papers. “I’ll come with you, that sounds like great fun. Percy gossiping. Does that mean you might work in the Ministry after all?”

“Merlin, who knows?” Hermione groaned. “Probably not anytime soon, which I’m sure will shock everyone who knows me.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t shock me.”

“Hmm.” Hermione supposed Charlie knew her pretty well, at this point. Better than most of her friends, honestly, although nobody could really best Harry and Ron. “Maybe I could work in a different Ministry, somewhere else, somewhere I’m not lauded and memorialized and all that.”

“What department?”

“I don’t know. Something inspiring, I suppose. Freeing someone or bringing on a revolution.”

Charlie chuckled. “Then you’d just become lauded all over again.”

Hermione paused, looking at him. “You’re right. I’m caught in a vicious cycle. Damn.” She laughed slightly, to show she was kidding, but she meant it a bit, too. How could she make changes, as she’d always thought she should, but not get expectations heaped on her in the process? It was like there were two parts of her that could never reconcile.

It takes them about a week, through Muggle transport, walking, and Floo, to reach their next destination. This one was something Hermione had really been looking forward to, ever since she’d read about it in Charlie’s elaborate plans. The Fairie Fields were supposed to be gorgeous, one of the wonders of the Wizarding World. She’d asked Charlie how many marvels there were, and he hadn’t understood. How funny, Hermione thought, that the Muggle World had thought to set a finite number of wonders they could appreciate.

It took them a good day and a half to hike up to the best vantage point. There was a designated Portkey spot at the top, of course, but both she and Charlie had decided almost without discussion that they weren’t going to cheat themselves out of the climb. Hermione was in the best shape of her life, honestly, and that was counting her year on the run that had been less actual running and more poor nutrition. Finally, around mid-afternoon, they reached the peak of the mountain, about a mile off from the main tourist spot.

“It’s not actually fairies, of course,” Charlie had said when they were going over possible side trips. “Fairies don’t gather like this as a general rule, although how much is due to their current population size, I don’t know. It’s just a forest of a certain kind of tree, and the variety of luminescent creatures that live off those trees.”

“It’s magical, though, right? The Muggle world hasn’t heard of this, I don’t think.” Hermione had tried to remember what she had learned about Nepal, and she didn’t think ‘glowing forests’ had been in there.

“It’s definitely magical, just more Herbology territory than Care of Magical Creatures, from what I remember.”

“Huh,” Hermione had said, and had checked out a book from a nearby library before they’d left. She hadn’t managed to get all the way through before needing to return it in time for their departure, though. Imagine how overdue it would have been, had she kept it!

“They should put portkeys in library books,” she said now as they sat at the top of the mountain, drinking water and resting their legs, waiting for nightfall. 

“Why? And what train of thought have _you_ been riding?”

“So they would pop back when they’re due, of course. Although I suppose you could hold onto them by accident and get sucked back onto the shelf. That wouldn’t be pleasant.”

“You might enjoy it,” Charlie said whimsically, falling onto his back and taking deep breaths. They’d raced the last half mile or so. Stretched out, he took up nearly all of the flat top they were seated on, and Hermione rolled her eyes at him as she nudged him with a toe.

“Shove over,” she said, and he obliged. “I definitely wouldn’t enjoy being crushed to death by a bookcase, thank you very much.”

“No, but being magically transported back to a library when your book was due, so you could check out a new one? Or renew the one you were reading?”

“I could simply Apparate,” Hermione said airily. 

“I mean, of course, but imagine the drama.”

“Ha,” Hermione said, more at him than to him, and closed her eyes against the setting sun. “Should we get out the tents?”

“I don’t think they’d fit up here, honestly, and it’s almost dark out anyway.”

“You know, you’ve been hyping this up enough, let’s hope it was worth it,” Hermione said, still with her eyes closed. Her muscles were beginning to relax, and she sternly reminded them that she needed to stay awake until nightfall and probably a bit longer, to hike down enough to set up camp.

“I aim not to disappoint, that’s for sure.”

Something in his voice made Hermione open her eyes, squinting, and look over at him. “You haven’t disappointed, Charlie,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said gruffly.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, letting it drop.

They laid there for a few more minutes, letting the sun drop all the way behind the horizon. When the chill of the night swept over them, Hermione shivered and sat up, looking over the side of their small peak. “Charlie,” she said, in a hushed whisper.

“What?” he whispered back, and she almost laughed at his echoing of her tone. There was no real need to whisper, really. The trees couldn’t hear them from here.

What the trees could do, though, was _glow_. Hermione had imagined a general soft light, something akin to the lights of the Christmas trees in the Great Hall or to looking down on a town from high above. But it was almost like… stars, upside down. She looked up to the actual night sky, specked with constellations, and then back down to its arboreal reflection, and felt the world tilt on its axis somehow. She wound her fingers into the grass, just to prove to herself that the ground was where it belonged, and stared some more.

“Wow,” Charlie said behind her, and she turned to see him looking over the other side. The same view but from a different perspective, so similar to life, she thought, and smiled at her own tendency to get deep and philosophical at night. 

She looked back at her own view, letting her mind wander as she took in the sight. If she focused, she could almost make out individual trees, something in their leaves emitting a softer light, but there was also this… seed, she supposed was the appropriate word. This seed, at the center of each tree, glowing through it and up. She could see the individual trees and their light at the edge of the forest, but as her eyes swept inwards, they all faded together. One big menagerie of light and connection.

“Do you see the creatures?” Charlie whispered.

“Hmm?” Hermione asked, scooting backward to hear him better.

“The creatures,” Charlie said again, and he had scooted back too, so they were back to back. Hermione let herself lean into him a bit so that she could look back up at the sky, lost in the stars that seemed to surround them. “Pixies, fairies, probably even some doxies, and so much more. Everything that glows loves this forest.”

“I love this forest too,” Hermione said. “Although I still have bad memories of all the doxies in Grimmauld Place.”

“Mum went a little barmy, I heard.”

“She meant well.”

“She doesn’t do very well without a plan, my Mum. Pretty sure I got it from her, Dad wouldn’t mind just puttering about the house all day.”

“I’d go mad,” Hermione said, still wondering at all the lights. Her eyes seemed to switch between trying to take in every detail of the sights around her and just giving up, taking it all in as one. “Maybe I wouldn’t,” she added after a moment, “If I could be puttering someplace like this.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“No,” she said, almost dreamily. “I think I could do well with no plan at all, as long as I could really… enjoy life, like this. Stare at beautiful sights. Listen to beautiful music.”

“A life of leisure.”

“Not of leisure, not quite. A life of… observation. A life spent taking things in.”

“The world as your library.”

Hermione laughed quietly, leaning her head back against his shoulder. They sat back to back, each gazing at half of a glimmering world. “The world as my library.”

“I’d want to share it, of course.”

“Mm,” Hermione hummed, wanting him to know she was still listening.

“Write about it, or take a photo, although photos couldn’t do this justice. Sing a song about it, something. Is beauty really… beauty, if no one else notices it?”

Hermione remembered something she’d heard once before and laughed, the sound seeming awfully loud in the pinprick of world they were sitting in. “You should ask Fleur that sometime.”

Charlie shuddered, the dramatic movement shaking Hermione too. “I’d rather not, actually. I imagine she has some opinions on beauty.”

“She does. They’re rather interesting.”

“Maybe I _should_ ask her, then,” he said thoughtfully, and then drifted into silence. They seemed to sit on that small patch of ground forever, suspended in a sky of light, each thinking of their own idea of living life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put a lot of thought into that Muggle Studies course planning, and I'll never, ever use it. Maybe I'll steal from it to write the History of Magic coursework I'll need for a different fic...


	8. Trust Issues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sorry for the random hiatus! I think I'm getting my muse back on this one, but we'll see, and of course my other fics will suffer for it.

In the end they had barely avoided falling asleep while looking at the Fairie Fields, and Hermione had needed little to no persuasion to crash in the spare bed in Charlie’s tent rather than hike down a bit and put up her own where it wouldn’t fall off the edge. And really, this saved on protection charms, anyway. The next morning was a bit alarming, mostly because her automatic response to waking up in that bed hit her a bit before her brain truly processed her surroundings. It took a couple minutes of assigning good memories before she placed herself firmly in Nepal and not the Forest of Dean.

It was a bit surprising, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been, that more than a few of those happy memories involved Charlie. She’d been sitting in this tent with him for weeks now, after all. Drinking tea, poring over maps, making plans. Talking about everything from their fears and futures to pranks pulled and mischief made. It made her miss Harry and Ron, actually, to have her memories of this tent diluted in that way, and she resolved to Floo call them the next time they slept in civilization.

She voiced that thought to Charlie as they packed everything up, and he immediately seemed apologetic, agreeing quickly. “We can move faster, if you’d like,” he offered, hoisting his pack up onto his shoulders. “Or stop making side trips.”

“No,” Hermione hastened to say, “not at all. I like this trip, I like the speed we’re traveling at. I just want to say hello, is all.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, but he didn’t sound all that convinced.

“Charlie,” she said, hoping to get his attention. He stopped and looked at her. “I’m fine, really. I’m so glad you let me come along.”

Charlie smiled, really smiled, then. “I’m glad I let you come along too. All that talk about needing to go by myself, but I can’t help but feel like I would have been either dreadfully bored or completely in my own head by now.”

“I know what you mean. My mind runs in circles all the time. That’s why I love Harry and Ron, you know, they pull me out of it.”

“Those two could pull Socrates out of his head,” Charlie joked as they started toward the Portkey point. Hiking up to the view was one thing. Hiking down past the same sights was a bit different.

“They’re a bit chaotic, aren’t they?”

“Let’s just say that Harry fits in quite well with my family.”

Hermione smiled. “Good. He’s always a bit worried about that, I think.”

“Really?” Charlie asked, spinning to look at her and almost falling over a log in the process. “Is that why he’s quiet at family dinners?”

“No one is quiet at family dinners. Watch your feet, please, I’m not a Healer.”

“Alright, quiet _er_.”

Hermione shrugged, although Charlie couldn’t see her as he had heeded her words and turned back around. “I think Harry and I are just naturally quieter. But sometimes, yes. It’s a bit wild at moments, and now that he and Ginny aren’t dating, he doesn’t have that solid connection anymore. At least in his head. I’m pretty sure your family disagrees.”

“You’re part of the family too, you know,” Charlie said, still facing away from her as they walked. “Even if you never date Ron again.”

“Or any of your siblings?”

Charlie laughed, the sound echoing off the trees around them. “Or any of my siblings. Mum’s adopted you, and you have to deal with that.” He was quiet a moment. “We’re going to Australia.”

“Yes?”

“Your parents are in Australia.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t forgotten, of course she hadn’t, but she’d rather thought he had, somehow. That was stupid, she thought to herself. It had been a rather major conversation at several Weasley dinners, and Australia wasn’t an especially forgettable place.

“Did you want to see them? I know you couldn’t make the charm work, but if--”

“I didn’t try,” Hermione blurted, interrupting him. She almost never did that, and it took him by surprise. Or maybe the words themselves did that.

Either way, he stopped in surprise, and she caught up to him in a few stumbling steps. He looked at her, not saying anything, just listening, and she tried to draw up the strength to tell him the truth now that she’d started. But she couldn’t, and instead just kept walking, toward the Portkey point. After a few seconds, she heard him start walking again behind her.

It wasn’t until they were through the Portkey destination at the bottom of the mountain, out of the small town, and walking along the road that the silence finally ate at her self-control. “I didn’t try. I mean, I did, I tried a few times, but I didn’t _really_ try. You know?”

“You didn’t try your best?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she admitted, and god, the grief of that hit her so hard she stopped and sat down.

He sat beside her, his shoulder touching hers just enough to offer silent support, and she willed herself not to cry.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and then she was crying anyway. “I had all the charms and counter-charms and magic all worked out, and I went down there. Harry and Ron wanted to come with me, Ron especially, but I told them I needed to do it alone. But then when I was down there, I just looked at them. Charlie, they’re _happy_. They’ve got this dentist office down there, and loads of patients, and five dogs. And I was just afraid…”

“You were afraid you’d… make them unhappy?”

“No,” Hermione shook her head, trying to wipe away her tears before they could fall. “I know they’d be happy to see me, although they’d be so mad, too. They’d be ecstatic, and then they’d come back to England to be with me. They’d leave their perfect life in Australia and their practice and their patients and their five dogs and come to be with me, and I haven’t got any of that. I don’t think I have the happiness in me to replace all of that.”

“They probably wouldn’t leave their dogs,” Charlie offered.

Hermione burst into laughter, the sound mixing with her tears, and leaned her head on Charlie’s shoulder as she just let her emotions out in a big bundle. “No, you’re right. We’d be back in our house, my parents and I and five dogs, just like we used to be, apart from the dogs. It’d be back to normal.” Hermione paused, trying to take deep breaths. “But I’m not back to normal.”

“That’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m supposed to be different. But aren’t I supposed to know how I’m different? They’re going to tell me this story about their life in Australia, all the things they did, and how it all led them back to me and to England. And then they’ll look at me, and I’ll start to tell the story, but it won’t… I don’t know where it will lead, where it will end.”

“You can’t talk to them until you know what you’ll say?”

Hermione tilted her head back on his shoulder, watching a flock of birds fly over their heads. “Exactly.”

“Hmm.” They lapsed into silence, and Hermione thought a few times about getting up before she finally straightened and gathered her things, tugging Charlie to his feet as well.

They must have walked another hour or two, well on their way to the next town with an inn and a Floo connection, before Charlie spoke again. “Do you want to go check on them anyway?”

Hermione thought about that for a bit as they walked, crunching over leaves. “No,” she said, finally. “I don’t think… This isn’t the trip for that. I set protective charms on their house, anyway, so I’ll know if something goes wrong. Seeing them… It just makes it harder, makes me feel more guilty.”

Charlie nodded. “Alright.”

Hermione Flooed Harry first, that night, and caught him up on everything. She was surprised how interested he was in Krum’s life and house, until he explained. “He’s a famous Quidditch player, Hermione. With me being… well, me, and Ginny playing for the Harpies…”

“You wanted to see what kind of life you all could lead.”

“Well, er, yeah,” Harry said, shooting a sideways glance at Charlie sitting next to her. “Not that we’re talking or anything, I was just thinking, is all.”

Charlie held up both hands. “I swear on my Christmas sweaters, Mum won’t hear anything from me.”

Harry grinned at him. “Cheers, mate. I just want to make sure, y’know?”

“I know, Harry,” Hermione said, smiling. “I’m glad for you.”

“Are you and Ron, y’know, totally done?”

Hermione sighed. “I don’t know, Harry, probably. I stopped trying to see the future ages ago.”

“When you stormed out of Divination third year, you mean?”

“Yes, exactly.”

They firecalled the Weasley house next, hoping to catch Ron as well, and they weren’t disappointed. Hermione let Charlie take the lead on this call, since it was his family, but soon found herself having to stick her head into the fire alongside his to keep him from having to relay entire conversations.

“And Hermione, dear, you’re alright too? All those dragons, dear, I know you haven’t the best memories of them.”

“They’re lovely, Molly.” The woman had convinced Hermione to call her ‘Mum’ or ‘Molly’ long ago, and Hermione had opted for the name that didn’t imply imminent matrimony. “Ever so impressive, all of them. I saw the Welsh Green from the Triwizard tournament, you know, and the Ukrainian Ironbelly from Gringotts. They’re both doing well.”

“Well, alright,” Molly said, but Hermione could see her twisting her skirts in her hands.

“Really, I’m having a lovely time with Charlie,” she said, hoping to reassure her.

“Really?” Molly said brightly, and Hermione felt Charlie pinch her elbow on their side of the fire. “That’s wonderful, dear.”

“So, ‘Mione, anything fun happen?” Ron said, perhaps a little faster than normal.

“I ran into your favorite Quidditch player,” Hermione teased him with a smile.

“What, Krum?” Ron asked. “Brilliant! Did you get him to sign something?”

Hermione shook her head at him, bemused. As if Ron didn’t hate getting asked for his autograph.

They spent a little while longer talking to the Weasleys before bidding them goodnight, although it was later for Hermione and Charlie than it was in England. Charlie ended the Floo charm on the fire as Hermione got off her rather sore knees and plopped into the chair of their little common space. They’d rented a suite with two rooms, since they needed a communal fire, and Hermione was getting quite used to this arrangement. She hadn’t slept in her own tent in a while, she realized.

“What was that pinch for?” she asked Charlie once he was in the chair opposite hers.

Charlie groaned and slumped in the chair, closing his eyes. “Did you see Mum’s eyes when you said we were having a lovely time? It’s awakened her match-making.”

Hermione snorted. “That’s all it takes? No wonder Harry doesn’t want anyone mentioning him and Ginny in the same sentence.”

“Yes, well, it was twice as likely to happen to us, I suppose.” Charlie gestured between them vaguely, eyes still shut. He might have been asleep if it weren’t for the speaking and the moving.

“Why?”

“Because Mum wants you to be an official Weasley, remember? Now that you and Ron aren’t together she’s looking at all your options. And she’s always looking for a sign I’ve found someone, so I can be happy.”

“You don’t need to find someone to be happy, though.”

“A novel idea, Miss Granger. Would you like to explain that to my mother?”

Hermione knew he was joking, but answered seriously anyway. “Of course, if you’d like me too.”

Charlie peered at her, eyebrows furrowed, before smiling in a bemused sort of way. “You honestly would, wouldn’t you? Forces of nature, both of you. No, Hermione, it’s fine. She accepts that I’m happy without someone. She’s just not fully convinced I wouldn’t be _more_ happy with someone.”

“Mm,” Hermione hummed thoughtfully. “Would you like some cocoa?”

“Absolutely.”

They reached the Thailand Reserve several days later, and Charlie filled her in as they walked the last mile. “It’s actually called a Community rather than a Reserve.”

“Why?” As Hermione spoke, there was a whoosh as a dragon flew overhead. She ducked instinctively.

“This isn’t humans caring for dragons, it’s humans living _with_ dragons.”

Hermione looked at him, though she didn’t stop walking. “You said that before, a little, but was that… you mean they can leave? Was there a person riding that dragon?”

She must have sounded either overly scared or overly excited, because Charlie laughed. “Probably not, but I’ve got no real clue. I’ve never been here before.”

“Really?! This seems like a big part of any dragon tamer’s education.”

“They actually ban tamers-in-training. We’re taught how to help dragons, treat them, but not how to interact with them like this. It’s a whole… culture, I suppose is the best word. I’m told seeing is believing.”

Hermione shook her head. “I imagine so.”

She tried to stop herself from asking too many questions as they reached the outermost building, a sort of guard post where they were required to show identification and given strict instructions. “DON’T FEED THE DRAGONS SNACKS,” said one big sign. “DRAGONS ARE NOT PETS,” said another. The man at the gate spoke for over five minutes, and Hermione tried to listen, she really did. But she was reminded of her primary school years, when her parents lived across from an airport. Every two minutes or so, a dragon would whip by overhead, so close she swore their claws would catch her hair. Each time she tried not to duck and failed, and was only slightly cheered when Charlie did the same.

“No photos, no wandering off the main roads without a guide,” the guard was saying. He took a last look at Charlie’s Wizarding passport, which listed his occupation, and added, “No taming,” in a gruff tone that brooked no argument.

“Yes, sir,” Charlie said. Hermione forced herself not to laugh at his meek tone of voice, nodding to the guard in what she hoped was a commanding yet respectful manner, and then they were through the gate.

Charlie held up the map the guard had given them. “I’m meeting the ambassador in the main office, which should be… that way.” He pointed up a nearby hill with one big, wide road curving over it, and they began to walk.

Each time a dragon passed, both Charlie and Hermione craned their necks to watch, and usually stumbled into each other in the process. Before long they were laughing helplessly, but as they crested the top of the hill they both fell silent.

It was summer and they had been traipsing through fields of green for weeks, but nothing compared to this. It was as if every possible ecosystem had been shoved into one area, like a snowglobe designed by an indecisive artist. Straight ahead of them was a huge, sparkling lake, one side surrounded by marshland, the other by a lush grouping of trees. To their left were prairies filled with flowers and other plants, and from their vantage point small, meandering paths could be seen. To their right was their destination, a small cluster of buildings that almost seemed out of place among such greenery. A small blob of civilization dropped into nature.

And everywhere, dragons. Dragons swimming in the lake, flying over it, dipping in and out of it like stones being skipped across. Dragons lying in the fields of flowers, so still they’d look like boulders if she couldn’t see how their tails wrapped around them. And dragons in the cluster of buildings, moving down the roads. Hermione knew, now, why they were so wide.

“They’re everywhere,” Charlie breathed, “and look at all the people.”

Hermione glanced at him, confused, before looking back to the tableau in front of them. And yes, sure enough, everywhere there were dragons, there were people. Walking around the fields, weaving through the buildings. Even swimming in the lake, which seemed to Hermione to perhaps be the most dangerous activity one could attempt when one dragon-paddle could send you to a watery grave.

She was just about to point this out to Charlie when the ground seemed to shudder, and instead she was grabbing onto his arm for support. “What--”

“There,” Charlie said, pointing, and sure enough, there was a dragon between them and the little town that had pushed off from the ground, propelled what looked like 20 meters into the air with one jump.

Hermione let out a sound that was supposed to be an expression of interest, but instead came out sounding like a squeak of fear. She cleared her throat.

“You alright?” Charlie asked her.

She realized she was still gripping his arm tightly, and released it. “Yes?”

He gave her a doubtful look.

“Yes,” she repeated firmly. “It just caught me off guard a bit. I was just getting used to the dragons in their enclosures. Come on, let’s go.”

Charlie stared after her as she walked purposely down the hill, looking amused, before catching himself and walking after her.

The main office was in the back of what seemed to be a general administrative building, and Charlie and Hermione had to dodge people with packages and file folders to get to a door marked with what appeared to be a number of different translations of the word ‘ambassador’.

“The other places didn’t call them ambassadors,” she pointed out to Charlie, the statement really more of a question.

“I noticed that too. A lot of their terminology is different,” Charlie said, casting a _Tempus_ charm to see if they were early. “It’s to do with the culture here. They’re a community, sort of a tiny principality, so they need an ambassador to communicate their needs and speak on their behalf to the surrounding areas. The Wizarding areas, anyway.”

Hermione nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. This almost seems like a country that happens to have dragons, rather than a place centered on them.” She grinned. “This is what I thought dragons were like, when I first heard they existed.”

“Yeah?”

“Muggles have stories about dragons, loads of them, and it’s always… a land with dragons. A world like our world, but dragons are everywhere, are accepted.” She smiled up at Charlie. “And then our hero or heroine goes on an adventure with one.”

Charlie laughed. “That’s pretty close to what I thought dragons were like when I was a kid. I kept waiting for one to land in my backyard, or a baby to be in trouble.”

“I bet you were thrilled when Ron wrote to you about Norberta.”

“Oh, yes. A baby Ridgeback, that needed to be saved from Hogwarts in the middle of the night?” Charlie shook his head. “It was honestly one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t have any idea what I was doing!” Charlie grinned at the memory. “I had _just_ gotten accepted into the training program, I hadn’t even interacted one-on-one with a dragon yet, much less a baby one. Infant dragons are much more dangerous than their full-grown counterparts, you know.”

Hermione remembered how close Hagrid had come to setting his cottage on fire and winced.

“And I just decided that this was my chance, to prove that I could handle it, so I stole a cage--”

“You _stole_ it?” Hermione asked, incredulous.

“I snuck onto the Hogwarts grounds after dark, Hermione,” Charlie said, laughing. “You’re surprised I stole the equipment?”

“I guess not.”

“Anyway, I stole a cage that I thought was the right size and just… left to get the dragon.”

“Didn’t you have to give it to your teachers when you got back? Why steal the cage and leave covertly when you had to tell them what was going on anyway?”

Charlie looked rather cowed. “I… didn’t really think it through.”

Hermione started laughing, louder this time. “You thought you’d return the conquering hero, didn’t you?”

Charlie was glaring at her, but she could see a smile fighting its way out. “Perhaps. I may have been imagining… I don’t know, a medal, or something. Instead I got to muck out some truly nasty places.”

Hermione laughed harder.

“Hello?” a rather toneless voice said.

Hermione struggled to cut off her laughter, breathing hard, and turned toward the sound.

“Hello, Mr. Ambassador--” Charlie stopped when the man held up a hand and passed him a sheet of parchment. “It has an incantation on it,” Charlie told Hermione. “A translation spell.”

“Oh,” Hermione managed between her calming breaths, looking to the man who was surely the Ambassador.

“You’ll need to cast it before we can have a conversation,” he said, although his mouth formed different words. 

It was translating his words as he spoke them, Hermione realized, and looked back at the parchment, pulling out her wand. “Is there a special wand movement?”

“I guess not,” Charlie said. _”Lingua Inanis.”_

Hermione copied him, and felt a strange numbness come over her tongue before it dissipated. “Hello,” she tried, speaking to the ambassador, and heard a strange echo over her words.

“Lovely,” the ambassador said, and then gestured them into his office. “You wrote, saying you wanted to speak, and perhaps request research,” he said once they were situated. “We do not do research here.”

The man was intimidating, and Hermione fought the urge to put her hand on Charlie’s arm, or something, and then rolled her eyes at her own fear. She’d faced… well, everything. Surely a Dragon Community Ambassador would be just fine.

“Yes, sir,” Charlie began.

Hermione was distracted by the fact that she could hear his words in English, as well as in what she supposed was Thai. They’d been spoiled so far, she realized, for each dragon reserve to have members that spoke English fluently. She tuned back in to what Charlie was saying, realizing she was probably missing important information.

“If you have any… observations, perhaps, that you’d be willing to share, that would be great. Uh, excellent.” He looked a bit flustered, and Hermione didn’t blame him. “I have observations and research from all the places we’ve been so far, if you’re interested in those.”

“And what is the purpose of this trip? What is your goal?”

Charlie hesitated. “...I don’t know yet, I suppose. Maybe I’ll know once I’ve been here for a bit.”

And suddenly, a smile split the man’s face, and Hermione felt the air in the room lighten considerably. “Perfect,” the ambassador said. “I am Paithoon,” and the name came straight from his lips, no translation, “and I welcome you.”

“Right,” Charlie said, confused.

“We do not tend to welcome those with preconceived notions or plans,” Paithoon explained, standing up and gesturing again to the door. “Come, I’ll show you around.” He led the way back through the building, ducking around people with ease, and held open the door for them. “That is why we do not open our doors to dragon tamers, for the most part.”

“That makes sense,” Hermione said, her first words to the ambassador other than her hesitant greeting. “It must be easy for this place to be misunderstood, or made into a spectacle.”

“Yes,” Paithoon agreed, stopping to look at her. “I did not get your name.”

“It’s Hermione Granger, sir.”

Paithoon nodded and turned, continuing to walk, and Hermione basked a little in her anonymity, grinning at Charlie as they began to walk after the ambassador.

“As you can see, most of our spaces are made for dragons and humans alike,” Paithoon said as they walked down the wide road, keeping to the edges. “Of course, just as the dragons cannot enter our buildings, we cannot get to some of the more remote locations within the community. But for the most part, we overlap.”

“Do they have names?” Hermione asked. There was a dragon ahead, ambling down the road, and the closer they got to it the more she had to tell herself to walk at a normal pace.

“Not officially,” Paithoon said, smiling back at her.

“Unofficially?” Charlie asked.

“Unofficially, of course they do. I suppose it is part of being human, to name everything we come across. This is Small, up here.”

“Small?” Hermione asked, confused by the English name, and then she realized that it had been translated and smiled. “Small. Ironic naming persists worldwide, I suppose.”

Charlie huffed a laugh. “It well might, but Small is actually pretty small compared to most of the species of dragon housed here.”

“Oh,” Hermione said a bit faintly, looking up at Small as they finally caught up to the dragon.

“I think he is heading down to the lake, if you all want a ride,” Paithoon said.

“A ride?” Charlie asked. “I thought they had free reign of where they went within the community.”

“Oh, they do,” Paithoon said. “They might take you to a snowy mountaintop just as soon as the beach, or they might stay right where they are. But Small has a set routine, and will not care if we ride along.”

“Absolutely,” Charlie said, his eyes bright, and he was practically bouncing in place as they followed alongside Small, heading toward a large fork in the road that seemed to serve as a sort of launch pad.

Hermione followed dutifully, willing her hands not to shake.

As Small slowed to a stop, Paithoon raised his wand and, with a flourish, Conjured a sort of box along his belly.

Charlie looked down at Hermione. “That’s so interesting, that we’re riding below the--Hermione?”

“Hmm?” She was fully trembling now, and blowing out slow breaths to try to calm herself.

“Hermione--” Charlie came and stood in front of her, bending over slightly so she was looking right at him. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot about the Ukranian Ironbelly.” He shook his head. “Bollocks, you don’t even like broomsticks, do you?”

Hermione laughed shakily. “Not really, but I’ve gotten used to them over the years. I’d say it’s a raised-by-Muggles thing, except that Harry’s a natural, and--” she cut her babbling off. “I really do want to go to the lake.”

“We can go a different way. We can walk.”

Paithoon was walking back toward them, and Hermione realized that Charlie had steered her away from Small slowly. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Hermione told him firmly, then turned back to Charlie. “I want to go. It’ll be okay.”

“It’ll be okay,” Charlie repeated. “Trust me.”

Hermione blew another breath out. “I do, I trust you.” She nodded, looking at him for another moment, and then turned toward Small. “Let’s go,” she said, walking toward the basket.

“She is afraid of heights?” Paithoon asked Charlie.

“Sort of,” Charlie said, caught off guard by the feeling that had appeared somewhere around his sternum when Hermione had said she trusted him.

“Very brave,” Paithoon said in a complimentary tone, following her toward Small.

“Uh-huh,” Charlie said, brushing the moment from his mind and hurrying after them both. He’d always wanted to ride a dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Australia! Drama! Ex-boyfriends!


End file.
